When I was a sophomore in high school, my pastor and his wife gave us high schoolers notebooks to use as prayer journals. They encouraged us to take a few minutes each day and jot some things down in the books. They gave a few suggestions about things we could include but left room for us to do things in a way that fit our unique personalities. So I tried prayer journaling and found that I liked it. After about six months I moved to a new notebook and started writing a short paragraph prayer each day.
Thirteen years later I still write my journal almost every night. I've filled quite a few college ruled notebooks over the years. Every once in a while I'll flip back through an old book or two. Sometimes I'm able to use the journals to figure out on which day a certain event happened or determine what we did for some holiday last year. But the journals are less a record of daily events and more a record of my own thoughts and feelings, my dreams and questions and struggles and joys since I was about 16 years old.
It can be interesting to have a window into my own psyche years ago. Sometimes I can see growth in myself, noticing things that I stressed about in the past that no longer seem like such a big deal. And sometimes the prayer journal serves as a sobering reminder of areas where I still need growth, where I still make the same mistakes or wrestle with the same worries. There are places where I laugh at my younger self, and there are places that make me wish I still was as excited or passionate about some issue as I seemed to be then.
But as much as these prayer journals are my personal records, I find that I'm not the one I learn the most about as I read them. Again and again I get the feeling that God is really the main character in this long-running narrative. God is the one I address each day, normally as "Heavenly Father" but sometimes with a variety of other names and titles. Looking back I see how God answered these prayers, how God blessed me with these memories, gave me these successes, and helped me through these struggles. God provides hope; God forms character; God overcomes worry; God inspires praise. In all sorts of situations, with feelings of gratitude, guilt, fear, satisfaction, sorrow, joy, and more, I feel myself being drawn by God over and over. And like the psalm-writers of long ago, I learn that God is loving and faithful, compassionate and gracious, just and true. God shows that He is good.
Grace and peace,
BMH
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