Review

Have you ever gone back and taken a look at old journals---or even old blogs you've written?  It's so encouraging to me.  Even though I've walked through some pretty tough things in my past, as I'm sure you have, God has been faithful.  It's been a journey of training for me.  I'm not the same person I was 30 years ago, 15 years ago, 5 years ago or even 3 weeks ago. 

I was laughing this past week, telling Amy about a paper I wrote my senior year in high school.  I had an English teacher who was also a published author.  He was very severe in his critique and we all tried to meet his high standards with our writing.  So for my final paper, I wrote about what was most on my mind---Marriage.  (Seriously!)  I made a high grade, but in red ink at the top of the paper, he wrote, "You might want to know how to spell the word when you write about it."  Throughout the whole paper, I'd written, "marraige."  Which only proves how much I knew about the subject at the time!  Amy was rolling as I was telling her this story.  She told me, "I'm sure when he was reading it at home, he was yelling to his wife, "Martha, come here!  You've got to hear this!!  It says here that if we do this, we'll have a successful marriage.  And we should try this...."

It's alot the same with my musings on here or in my journal.  I often write about things I have no knowledge of first-hand.  I know it only in theory.  But it's as if God reads what I write and says, "Ok.  We can learn about that if it's on your mind."  Not in a malicious way, but in a fatherly way.  And I praise Him for it.  I want to finish this life learning.  I want to grow and not be stagnant.  I want to finish well.

Even God keeps a journal and goes back and reads it.  Have you heard about it?  "Then those who feared the Lord talked often one to another; and the Lord listened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who reverenced and worshipfully feared the Lord and who thought on His name."  Malachi 3:16

Journals are a good thing.  It's a great reminder of where you've been, what you've learned along the way and Who has sustained you.