Journaling 101

I got my first diary in fourth grade. It was pink and had one of those tiny locks with an even tinier key, which felt like serious security at the time. After all, my little sister absolutely could not discover that I was still in love with Robby Jensen. Some things were simply too vulnerable to survive sibling scrutiny.

I loved that diary. I think I wrote in it for five years, which, in kid time, is practically a lifetime.

Now I fill a journal every few months. The one I'm using is green with stripes and scalloped edges because apparently I still believe beautiful things make me more likely to show up. I've also learned that I need lined pages and a spiral binding. It has taken an embarrassing number of years to figure out something so ordinary. This is how adulthood often works. We spend decades discovering our preferred notebook.

I've moved more than fifteen times, and every single time I've hauled boxes of old journals with me. There are stacks of them somewhere, full of all the things I was absolutely certain I'd one day want to remember. Mostly they're filled with prayers, disappointments, tiny joys, spiritual wrestling matches, and the occasional dramatic declaration that now makes me want to crawl under a blanket. Reading them is almost physically painful. And yet I can't throw them away. They remind me that God has been patient with me for a very long time.

People tell me all the time that they wish they journaled. They know it's supposed to be good for them. Maybe it is. I don't know that my journals are particularly profound. They won't be published after I die, and that's probably for the best.

What they are is consistent.

Every morning—without exception—I make coffee. I sit in the same chair. I reach for the same cute bag that holds my journal and Bible. I drink enough coffee to remember my own name. Then I write a few sentences. Usually it's about yesterday. Sometimes it's what's sitting heavy on my heart before the day has even begun.

Some mornings that's all there is. A handful of honest sentences.

Other mornings, after I've read Scripture, words keep coming. Not because I've forced them to, but because they've finally caught up with my soul.

I've learned not to measure the morning by the number of pages I fill. There is no quota. No gold star for eloquence. No invisible judge grading my spiritual sincerity.

It's just a habit. A small one. The kind that quietly becomes a life.

That's the surprising thing about habits. They don't ask you to be inspired. They just ask you to show up. And over enough ordinary mornings, showing up becomes its own kind of grace.