It’s a cloudy, cold winter night outside. Inside this darkened room, a single lamp frames my writing desk. The sounds of our neighborhood owl and quiet classical music accompany my solitary thoughts. As I begin tonight’s journalling, it occurs to me that there are probably others out there—maybe you?–engaged in the same task: Trying to corral just the right words to fill the pages of personal journals that we’ve kept for many years.
This chronicling of our lives may seem like a private matter, capturing in our own handwriting or keystrokes the events we want to remember. But our individual late-night writings may also be something else—a task or mission that connects us to each other. That carpets the path between here and there, between now and then.
I don’t know why you might keep a journal, but my motivation centers on possible readers years from now. Those close to me, and people I’ll never meet. Folks who might want to know what it meant to live in the 20th and 21st centuries. Individuals trying to hold together their own histories. Dear ones who want to find hope for their lives in others’ journalled pasts.
Writing a journal has an illusory character to it: It’s distinctly possible that no one will ever see what we put on paper or a memory device. We’re attempting to press into our journal’s wet concrete what we hope will become the footprints of lasting attitudes and memories. Our pensive word-findings are not about us at all. These journals will belong to others.
If you journal, hear my encouragement as your own late-night writing comes to an end: However you keep track of your life’s journey, don’t stop that work.
Your story might be a cherished part of God’s enduring words….
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