I love the day I open a brand new journal, its lined pages pristine. It always reminds me of Anne Shirley saying “Every day is fresh with no mistakes in it.” And yet I know the pages before me will be filled with mistakes. Not just words crossed out and misspellings, but bigger things. Like sin. And struggle. It can be a depressing thought instead of a jubilant one. So I always recall the comfort of Lamentations:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
How do I know this holds true? Because when I open I new journal (which ends up being every year or so) I take a few moments to pull down all the old ones out of the top of my closet. Scattered remembrances of the last twenty-five years of my life. I flip through the pages. Sometimes I read the journals all the way through. Sometimes I read a few pages here and there. But one page or one hundred doesn’t change the fact that those journals—once filled with blank pages, now filled with words from my pen—are tangible evidence of that very promise of God’s new mercies and His faithfulness. I see from where He has brought me and I anticipate where He will take me through the pages yet unwritten.
My newest journal waits just a few last pages transcribed into the old one. And then I will look back—and look forward. And I’ll begin again.
Do you journal? Do you write every day or as the mood strikes?