I wanted to remember what I liked, what I felt, what I thought at 16 so that one day, when I have a 16 year old, I can re-read my old journals and understand why my child is being so weird! ha! But in all seriousness… journaling was so helpful not only in my high school years, but in college as well. Some days I journal and it’s more like a prayer and then some days it’s just a story of our life in its’ current state. While some entries are mundane… others rock my world. Let me give you an example…..

It was my junior year of college and Michael had just graduated. He moved to North Carolina for an internship and I was loving life at CNU! I was living with my best friends and life was good. For the first time in my life, I was enjoying being independent without Michael being by my side. I was figuring out who I was without him and that was the year that I started this crazy business. It was like I blossomed and took off as soon as he left …. and we had a tough year… actually… we had a HORRIBLE year.  We refer to that year as “The Dark Ages”. By November of that semester, we had stopped communicating and I told Michael that I wanted a month of no communication to figure out what I was feeling. I’ll have to do a full post about this time in our life sometime because there is so much more to this story! Basically, it was one of the hardest years of our relationship and I remember it vividly because I journaled about it.  Some may say “Gosh do you really want to remember a year like that VIVIDLY?”…. and my response would be “Yes”.  I’m so thankful that I journaled through that year because whenever I read over those pages now, I’m reminded of how FAITHFUL God is in our life and in our relationship.  It was bad…. really bad. One day I wrote in all caps ” THIS WILL NEVER GET BETTER!!!”….. and look at us now. We’re married!! We’re happy , loving life and we’re in love with each other.

I love journaling because it shows me that the tough times don’t last forever. As I read over the things I was worried about in high school, I’m reminded of just how GOOD God is to crazy teenagers and as I read about the “Dark Ages” of our relationship during college, I’m thankful for my amazing husband. The thing is, when we don’t write down the details of our everyday lives, we forget how much we have to be thankful for. Just this week I’ve been freaking out about speaking and by tomorrow morning, I’ll barely remember that stress. My journaling these days is normally more like a prayer journal and I actually find it easier to pray this way. So for those of you who want to know why I think journaling is a life-enhancing tool, here are a few reasons to consider adding this to your daily life:

1.  Journaling allows you to process LIFE and EMOTIONS before your day begins. Your family will thank you for this. :)

2. Journaling allows you to look back on your life and realize that you are blessed…. even through the hard times. There is hope and it’s hard to remember just how HARD those seasons of life were without documenting them. 

3.  Journaling allows you to dream and write out goals privately! I write crazy, vulnerable things in my journal and no one will ever see it! 

Here’s to journaling, dream-writing and being reminded for years and years of all of our blessings!!!!