“Nearly a decade ago, I discovered a little-known study of three hundred of history’s greatest minds. The researcher, Catherine Cox, found one common denominator among them: nearly all recorded their thoughts, feelings, ideas, observations, and reflections in a journal.” – Author Mark Batterson

 

Scientists have discovered journaling can be extremely helpful to our minds, and may even improve our general health. One study found that patients afflicted with immune-related disease who kept their thoughts in a journal saw an improvement in their condition.

    Personal journaling should be done without concern for proper grammar, punctuation or fear of what others may think. Your journal should be a private place where you unpack your thoughts – to write about your feelings, your worries, your observations about life, and explore your hopes and dreams. The habit of writing in a journal forces us to take stock of the events in our lives.

    In his book “Writing and Being,” G. Lynn Nelson said, “I do not invite guests into my journal, so I do not have to keep it neat and orderly and clean.” He explained ordinary life is likely to bring on events that cause wounds to our souls and, “If I do not say my hurts, do not cry my tears, do not shout my anger, do not tell my stories into the healing skylight of my journal, they will eventually translate themselves into other languages. Hidden, unshared, and unhealed, my wounds can slowly translate themselves into a language of illness or alcoholism or abuse or suicide.”

    Children’s author Madeline LEngle was an avid journal writer.

    “When I have a profound personal experience, I write it down in my journal,” she said. “That way I am working through it. If I can write things out I can see them and they are not trapped inside.”

    A prayer journal can be a valuable tool for developing your relationship with the Lord. The discipline of spending quiet time each day with Bible, journal and pen, expecting to hear from God, is a life-changing experience. God will speak to us every day if we are listening. We can go to Him with this prayer: “Lord, I am here to read your Word. Please speak to me as I read.”   

    The famous Southern writer Flannery O’Connor, kept a prayer journal, in which she expressed honest and sometimes childlike prayers. She wrote, “Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to. I do not know You God because I am in the way. Please help me push myself aside.”    

    In reading the Psalms, we find David expressed his honest thoughts and feelings to God. He often revealed feelings of doubt and fear: “Why do You stand afar off, O Lord? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1) Most often, David then came to a place of faith and praise: “The Lord is my Light and my Salvation — whom shall I fear or dread? The Lord is the Refuge and Stronghold of my life” (Psalm 27:1).

    Through the years, I have unpacked many personal thoughts and dumped them onto journal pages without even thinking about how they would sound to others. Someone gave me this little poem to post in some of those journals: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, please throw this journal in the lake.”