I have journaled on and off over the years and find it very helpful to process my thoughts and feelings. Since June I have tried to be more consistent as I found myself struggling. I am not going to go into why because that time has passed now but I have found myself really enjoying that part of my day. I love putting pen to paper. I am still very old school and love to use pens that have a certain flow to them. My writing just seems to take on a mind of its own and I feel smarter! Do you know the ones I am talking about? I have been slowly going through a little book I picked up in a bookstore in Columbus Ohio. It caught my eye as I walked in because of its title “Writing Joy On My Heart- A 6 Week Bible Memory Devotional” written by Jean Fischer. I have been using this book to help me with writing prompts on days when I need a nudge to get started or feel inspired. This book has been a wonderful surprise to me. Below I am going to share something I wrote on August 16th to start off the faith section of my blog because I feel it represents who I am perfectly whatever season of life I am in. The devotional for that day was titled “In The Wilderness”. (Disclaimer when I journal, I am putting words to paper and not worried about grammar etc, hope it doesn’t drive the English majors of you too crazy!)
“We still make the same mistakes as the Israelites did approximately 3000 years ago. We lose trust in Gods leadership when trouble comes our way. We question whether God is leading us in the right direction or fast enough. We sometimes think God isn’t possibly leading us at all and we take full control. The trouble with this is that it never ends well. We just have to go back to the book of Exodus to remind ourselves of that. I have noticed even with the small things in my life it is easy if I am not disciplined to fall back into unhealthy habits. I lose focus of what is important and forget what to be grateful for. I have to make an asserted effort and have a mind set that I am going to do certain things throughout the day that are good and better choices for myself. As I am writing this I notice something though, where is God in all of this? Am I inviting Him in to my everyday life? Including the small things? As the world gets darker I have to and should make a choice of inviting Him in and directing my life. It all goes back to Proverbs 3:5-7. Am I completely trusting God with my life and allowing Him to direct my path? Its remembering God is always one step ahead of me and is always with me. Will I take His leading? There is freedom and joy on His path. Jean Fischer gives some guidance and encouragement on how to get on the right path.
- Seek Gods will- pray and meditate on His word
- Trust Him to show you the way.
- Practice Patience
- Hold on to optimism!
- Stay humble
- Believe God is in control
- His plans for me are good!
- Outside of comfort zone- don’t be afraid- He is holding your hand
- God is ahead of you, leading you even when He seems far away
- God reveals His plan one step at a time- big picture- knows best way to get there”