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People keep telling me I should journal. I'm not sure what it is. All I know is that I don't like writing. What's the use of writing things down?
People who make journalling a practice of life, do it in different ways. At certain times in my life, I have kept regular journals; other times, I only write when I am upset.
As a junior in high school, I wrote, "I have turned over so many new leaves in my life, I'm tired. I need to find something that makes sense soon." Two weeks after that, I received Christ. If I hadn't written that down in a diary, I wouldn't have remembered how desperate I felt then. Journalling is like a diary in some ways. My first attempt at journalling was during my first daily Bible study right after I became a Christian. I wrote down what chapters I had read and then wrote comments about what I learned, or thought about, while I read the verses. Sometimes I wrote out my prayer to God and things I had asked Him to do in my life. I found that it was helpful to write out ideas I had that I wanted to think about more later.
Writing can be good therapy. When I simply think about a problem, I tend to recycle the same problem without any insight. It is good to stop and ask myself, "What do you think about this?"
When I stew on a hurt, it only seems to get worse; talking about it to others sometimes doesn't help either. I have a couple of blank books that I can write my deepest hurts in, and when written, I give it to God, then put the book on the shelf. Later when a similar hurt erupts, I can go back and read about the other event and look for patterns in my behaviour and how I contribute to my own pain. That helps me know what changes to make.
A journal helps me remember when events happened and how I felt about them. As I learn new ways of handling my difficult emotions, it is insightful to see how I used to handle them. The journal gives me a record of how God is moving in my life and that I am not the same person I used to be. I am becoming more like Christ!
