My Journal

I’m starting to go through my journal again. The last time I did this, I talked back to it, letting my true thoughts and feelings out. As I read through it again, it surprised me how much anger there was at the time, especially the ones that I talked back to. Even more surprising was that the anger surfaced again, to some degree, letting me know that it still is a part of me and how I live now. That’s not something I want.

The Story of My Life

What I now call my journal is really everything I’ve found, and still am finding, that I have handwritten throughout my life in journals, Bible studies and elsewhere. I have taken those entries and am typing them into my computer in chronological order. As I read it again, it’s like the story of my life. I’m seeing my life through the thoughts, words and actions of who I was at the time.

It’s really interesting to see how I expressed myself, thought and felt. One of the things I’m noticing is how much I tried to convince myself that everything was okay and that I was always at fault, to some degree, in what was happening at the time. Scott was always given the benefit of the doubt and it was always me who was the problem or wasn’t doing enough to be the “right” kind of person. I’m also seeing that the definition of the right kind of person changed a lot.

Giving Myself a Voice

I realize also that I rarely wrote unless it was a Bible study I was doing or there were rough times happening. This helped me to understand why the journal I started writing three months after Scott died was completely full. Most of my other journals had lots of blank pages left in them. I’m sure it was an outlet for me to work through the issues without sharing my life too much with anyone so as not to burden them. I know now that’s not the way to approach life in that life is meant to be shared, but I’d been taught that speaking my thoughts and hurts was wrong and I would eventually wish I’d never said anything.

Anyway, it’s made for some rough reading, but for what I’m trying to do now in finding the good and redeeming my life story, it’s what I need. But there are some positives to look forward to as well. For several years, I wrote everything that happened during the day on wall calendars (the ones with the little boxes for each day to write appointments and such). I’m looking forward to being able to remember my kids when they were younger and the joy and good times that also made up my life. That’s a huge way, in my mind, that going through the journals is redeemed.

I feel that God gave me the nudge to write in the calendars so that when the time came for me to go back through the muck of the journals, I could also see the good and how He was always there. He gave me so many good times, friends, trips and even things. There was always good mixed in with the bad.

That’s the beauty of life with Christ. It doesn’t mean that you won’t have rough times. There will be plenty of those. But you never have to go through them alone. I know I never would have made it through my life without His being the leading Guide helping me to make better choices and giving me strength and courage to make it through the rough times while also holding on to a little of myself.

I believe He gave me the ability to write so I could give voice to what happened in my life. But I think it was for more. I’m discovering that my writing is helping me not only be able to look back to see my life for the reality it was, as I saw it through my human eyes, but it also is helping me to see it through the eternity in His eyes.

~ Joanna Lynn