Struggling with a topic? Don’t know how to get that fascinating novel onto paper? Let me ask …do you journal? Our story may actually set someone else on the path to freedom because it gives encouragement and hope. It honours God and becomes a ‘remembrance’ stone. (Joshua 4:5-7) It might even keep someone from making the same mistakes we did. If we know the past we’ll be less likely to repeat it in our future. Look what happened when a Pharaoh came along who didn’t know the history of his own country! (Exodus 1:8-11)
And who knows what part that journal will play in our writing? For instance, I was a captive in the prison of bulimia for more than sixteen years. When God healed me, I mentioned it cautiously to a chosen few but kept the details to my journal. Like the apostles in Acts 5:16-24, I was free but most people didn’t know it!
Eventually, my journal notes became the basis for my book, Meeting Myself, Snippets from a Binging and Bulging Mind. When I blogged my first few weeks as a widow, people begged for a book. And because I’d journaled my grief… I was able to capture it for others in The Pregnant Pause of Grief, the first trimester of widowhood.
What is our story? Do our family or our friends know how God is working in our life? Are those stories in a journal for an eventual family read? Why? Why not? After all, even God keeps a journal. (Malachi 3:16)
Prayer: Lord, we ought to be shouting You from the housetops! Help us start where we are by sharing Your Presence on paper. Amen
Brenda Wood, author & speaker
- Meeting Myself, Snippets from a Binging and Bulging Mind
- The Big Red Chair – storybook for grieving children
- Heartfelt-366 Devotions for Common Sense Living
- God, Gluttony & You, the Bible Study