Past and present

Journals help us to make sense of our lives.

They cause us to notice what is happening to us and in us each day.

They also allow us to respond to these realities.

No notice, no response.

We drift through life rather than take hold of it.

We can make decisions about what we accept and what we reject; 

about what we will be like and what we won't be like.

Journals help us to make decisions that promote growth.

Journals enable us to move from fog to clarity; to see our lives, feel our lives, live our lives.

It is much easier to live in the past through memories or in the future through fantasies 

than to live in the present through each moment.

Journals make present come alive for us.

To be a Christian pilgrim is to live in the present moment.

It is life with God; to seek him, to hear him, to respond him, to worship and love him, and to obey him.  

Journals therefore become a vital tool for living in the present with God.

What < How < Why.

Process information from an internal perspective.

To sit in silence is to be open to God.

A log is a record of progress.

To discover what it says about us.

It is in dark gaps, I must look to know who I am.

Journals facilitate not only a daily awareness of who we are becoming, 

but they also help us probe the past to know who we have been.

The way we assess ourselves now is different from what we understood when we went through them.

What we need to know is our history from an internal point of view,

What what happened meant to us in each period of time.

The present can be the best time to examine these things as time passes, the pain loses some of its sting,

and we have mature.

By reviewing our past, we also begin to recognize the footprints of God in our life.  They weren't always clear at the time.

In retrospect, we can see pattern.

A hinge is a turning point, when life moves from one directions to another.

It all depends on your point of view as you look back on your life.