J is for Journal
As many of you know, I'm slightly obsessed with documentation. I love words and photos and stories and memories. I thrive on remembering my favorite days and writing down the stories of new ones. Part of this obsession is the daily journal that I've kept for the last six years. That's right. I have every day of the last six years documented to some degree. And I love it.
I just used an online 'date difference' calculator and it told me this: The total number of days between Friday, December 25th, 2009 and Friday, April 15th, 2016 is 2,303 days. This is equal to 6 years, 3 months, and 21 days.
2,303 days. That sounds crazy. But honestly, documenting those days is one of the greatest choices I've ever made. As you might guess, I began keeping a journal on Christmas of 2009. My sister-in-law gave me a beautiful journal and I wrote in several paper journals for the next few years, until I switched to digital near the end of 2011. Switching to digital was an immense blessing, because I'm now able to search all of those pages from my computer and my phone, and I can know what day something happened - or the details of that event - in seconds. It's like magic. And it's been miraculous countless times.
Just two days ago, I went back to read what I was doing that day in 2015, and I found a letter that I'd written to my future self. And that letter told me everything that I needed to hear. It was amazing. It was also amazing to see how much has changed and how much I've grown in the last year. These past few months have been the happiest months of my life, and it's been so wonderful to be able to read and relive those days when I need strength.
The moral of the story? If you want to see the "big picture" of your life, and if you want to see how much you've improved and what you need to work on, keep a journal. I've read past journal entries and learned things about myself that I never noticed before. God has used my journals as a tool to show me truth, and light, and hope - countless times. He prompts me to read what I need to hear often, and I'm so grateful.
So if you want my advice, keep a journal. It's so, so worth it.
Bonnie Gwyn
I love journals
ReplyDelete