My mom recently alerted me to a Wall Street Journal article about people voluntarily reading their teenage diaries out loud in front of audiences. If my teenage diaries are ever found, I hope they combust instantly.
I started keeping a journal in third grade after receiving a lock-and-key diary for my birthday. I hid the diary under my desk and its key under a dying plant in my room. In seventh grade I wrote on sheets of loose leaf that I carefully stored in an ever-secure file folder where I also kept my collection of fact sheets of local homes for sale. (My collections as a child were vast and a tad unusual.)
Eighth grade introduced me to my first hardback journal. For several years, I stubbornly wrote all entries in loopy green cursive with a pen that I think you actually had to dip in a little glass ink bottle. God bless 13-year-old Kat because her decision means all entries are virtually impossible to decipher.
Once while living in a remote town near the ocean, we received word of a possible tsunami warning. As I stared out the window that day, my initial thoughts were not of safety, but rather of fear that if a tsunami did came through, my journal could wash away and land in someone else’s lap. (This is a 100% true story.)
My journals, which I wrote in with semi-regularity from ages 12 to 19-ish, likely read like most teenage girls’. Then when I was 20, my ever-fabulous coworker Megan gave me my first prayer journal.
Megan and I worked a 6 a.m. shift together in college. She is one of those friends everyone needs in their lives. Megan has saved me during many times of woe with nary a complaint. I also once set her mom’s kitchen towel on fire during Thanksgiving. (Ms Jill assured me she did it all the time, too, which I can only assume was a total lie told to make me feel better.)
Megan’s gift encouraged me to start looking at journaling from a faith perspective. I actually found the journal this morning and have determined that, while a gallant effort, my first prayer journal is a jumbled mess that includes some scripture, some prayers, lots of exclamation points and my summer hiking log.
Prayer Journal 2.0 focuses entirely on prayer. It’s a little less jumbled and a little more structured. Thank you, prayer process. Praying out loud or silently is great, but I think writing stuff down makes me ponder a little more about my thoughts, actions and beliefs. I can flip through the pages at a later date and see what’s changed, what’s stayed the same and what still needs improvement. Plus, it’s a good way to wind down the day and perhaps practice my handwriting, which, while I currently steer clear of bottles of green ink and cursive, is still rather terrible.
Thank fortune.