I had intended to write this blog about my lovely new
Five-Year Diary. It is difficult to find a gift that is just right for someone
nearing 90, but a special friend hit the spot with a 5 year diary. It was pink,
and extra large. Would I manage to fill it?
If God keeps me of a sound mind I will, for it doesn’t take
journaling skill for this. I have been filling these diaries ever since
my years abroad, where I needed more than four lines in a diary to record all
my adventures. Week after week I would type a letter home, to be shared around.
No, it was not ‘Dear Diary’, with whom I shared my deeper emotions, yet I found
it a friend. I missed it when I was back with family. It was based on these
records that my autobiography, ‘Wings of the Morning’ was written. But then I
decided to keep a 5 year diary, at least to record major events.
Especially after Joel and I were retired, we found it
useful to remember where we had been ministering or what message had been
preached. It enabled us to avoid preaching the same message in the same place
twice (at least within two years).
Yes, it is useful to look back and see what we had been
doing at the same time the previous year, but I have learned to touch
lightly on experiences which have caused depression, otherwise I found I would
be experiencing it all over again. I remember it was almost a relief when the 5
years were up and I had a clean book before me, so that I was not living again
the sadness of my husband’s final illness and death, though I did prove God in
it all, and He never leaves me or forsakes me.
But especially it is good to have a yearly reminder of so
many special blessings. We may not all be able to write of our blessings for
others to read, but it is good to look back and see how wonderfully God has
opened doors, and led us in his paths.
But primarily I want to write about my experience of
journaling. I have tried to do this over the years, and never managed to keep
it up but – help was at hand.
No pretty pink! A plain black cover with THECBRJOURNAL
embossed on it. Yes, it is for journaling, first and foremost with the
Lord, but the idea is that we share it also with God’s people.
Over the last few months I have loved reading the selected
portion for the day and responding by writing. There is space for prayers
of adoration, confession, thanksgiving and then supplication, all based on this
passage and then, right at the end of the page, there is room to write a couple
of lines which express that nugget of truth which I am making my own, from this
time spent in the Word.
So – what is the significance of the C in CBR? I had
presumed BR is for Bible Reading, so is C for Christian? No, rather for
Community, for there is a special blessing in sharing, and being mutually
blessed.
Many of us attending Grace Community Church had already
stepped into this pool of blessing, as they have shared by some special App
(hope you know what an app is?) and the wonderful skill of texting,
strengthening and encouraging each other, while I, unwilling to get entangled
with any more technology, continued in my splendid isolation.
But now, like Gomer of old, Hosea’s wayward wife who was
excluded, now I am included. All it took was for one to come along side and
welcome my email contributions, so that now I am included in a group. I wake
early, settle into my easy chair, my cup of ginger and books beside me, to come
to drink from the fountain of life and gather fresh manna.
Diary or not, I would recommend CBR journaling, and that,
morning by morning you gather, with others around you, to come to the
fountain of life and feed on bread from heaven.
