Journaling Through Pain to Peace ~ Valerie Ronald

 

Years ago, I stood to speak to my church family, feeling nervous and vulnerable yet certain I was doing what God wanted me to do.

“Pastor David has asked me to tell you how God’s faithfulness has brought me to where I can look back at recent challenging times in my life and see Him carrying me through. The best way I can tell you is by sharing excerpts from my journal.” I paused, looking out at familiar faces listening expectantly.

“My heart is in here.” I held up a worn, black spiral notebook.

"It contains pages smeared with tears˗˗sentences written black with anger˗˗many questions asked of God. And words of surrender when I came to the end of myself and God met me. There He gave me words from His journal, the Bible, to strengthen and encourage me. Words I read repeatedly, clinging to His promises when all else was crumbling around me.”

***

Throughout my life, journaling was a way for me to process difficulties and inner struggles. From an early age, writing was what I loved to do best. I filled notebooks with stories and descriptions, so it was natural to try to figure out my life by writing about it. When things were particularly difficult was when I relied most on journaling. It was the place where I could pour out my heart˗˗where I could honestly express my deepest struggles and emotions without being judged.

I never thought I would be brave enough to share publicly what I had written in private, however, when asked to tell some of my journey to my church family, God led me to my journal. As I prepared to speak, I asked God to show me which excerpts He wanted me to use. I felt like I was laying my heart bare for all to see, yet I had peace about it. I loved my church family. Many of them had loved and supported me through the intense trauma of the last few years. I knew I could trust them with aspects of my story I would not share with just anyone.

In the span of a few months, my children and I had been traumatized by my husband’s adulterous betrayal and desertion, and the diagnosis that I had non-Hodgkins lymphoma cancer. Our family struggled through emotional suffering, financial stress, and legal pressure. I had to try and be strong for my three children. I had to find ways to keep food on the table and the bills paid, as well as dealing with our brokenness. Often it was a matter of just putting one foot in front of the other, praying one prayer for help after the other, moment by moment.

During this time, my journal recorded my utter dependence on God. I needed Him so desperately. Even when I felt angry with what He was allowing to happen to me, He was my Rock. My meandering journal entries always came back to trusting in Him.

“How I need Jesus’ touch! Every day I search the Bible, hungry for reassurance that He knows what He is doing with the mess of my life˗˗needing to know, though all else is falling around me, He is still in control and has a purpose for these trials." 

I asked Him to teach me what He wanted me to learn. He gave me this. “The Lord may give you bread of adversity and water of affliction, but He who teaches you will no longer keep Himself out of sight, but with your own eyes you will see Him.” (Isa.30:20 NIV)  It is not things He wants me to know, it is a Person, Jesus Christ˗˗to see Him with my own spiritual eyes. He wants me to lean completely on Him and His faithful character; to trust when I am alone and empty, His love will fill me up.”

Regular journaling became a lifeline by helping me distill my thoughts and feelings so they made sense, expressing the essence of what was going on inside me. Writing caused me to slow down enough to attend to my inner being, helping me to reflect, contemplate, and more fully digest what I was experiencing. I also noticed a beneficial pattern in my journal entries. They often began with a rant of pain or anger over difficult circumstances, then as I sought God, the ranting became a prayer, informed by His Word and ending in gratitude. My journal functioned like a compass whose needle at first gyrated madly, then as the power of God steadied the needle, it pointed unerringly to ‘true north,’ the power of His Holy Spirit guiding and directing me.

By the time I shared my story with my church family, God was already at work releasing the log jam of problems damming my life river. Much of the dirt and debris had washed away in the cleansing flow of His Spirit and I looked forward to happier times.

Further entries in my journal recorded meeting and marrying my husband, a man of God and His Word, and going into remission from cancer, still holding 24 years later. My life is not perfect, but it is lived in perfect peace because of my beloved Savior. When I read back over my journal from those painful years, it is His love and grace which stands out. I have it in writing.

                                                                   

      

Valerie Ronald writes from an old roll top desk in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, with her tortoiseshell cat for a muse. A graduate of Langara College School of Journalism, she writes devotionals, fiction, and inspirational prose. Her purpose in writing is to encourage others to grow in their spiritual walk.                                                 

My Inconsistent Journal by Lorilee Guenter

 

It started with a simple notebook and a pen. The earliest I remember consistently writing in a journal was summer of 1986. I had the opportunity to travel with my grandparents, youngest aunt, and sister to Expo 86 in Vancouver. That journal holds observations and reflections of the trip. Over the years I have been an inconsistent journaller. I am most consistent at recording my observations and reflections while travelling.

Over the years, my journals have evolved, and some might say devolved. Lately when I pick up my journal it is a time of reflection. It is a time of asking questions and listening. I have said, "God meets me on the page." This is especially true when I don't follow a rigid journal structure. I write without agenda or time frame. I pause knowing God will show me what I need, when I need it. I pour out my heart, my questions, my concerns, my fears and my excitement in a raw unfiltered manner. Those journals are for my eyes only.

I have at times kept a gratitude journal. When I open those pages, I am remembering and counting my blessings. It is a time of slowing and noticing. It is a time of reflecting and watching my perspective change from grumbling to thanksgiving.

I have had seasons where I journal my prayers. I tried morning pages. I have a book of random quotes. No one style of journaling has been a consistent routine in my day. Even with gaps, I find I always return to my journal, whether it is fancy or plain, to record, reflect and ponder. I expect I always will. The style I use is what I need at the time.

Lorilee Guenter is an inconsistent journal keeper who enjoys learning. She can be found in the garden, with a book, or hiking and exploring nature with her husband. She is facing her fears by taking her stories beyond the journal page and releasing them from captivity.

Ministering to Our Future Selves by Michelle Joy Teigrob

After stumbling through a year-long gauntlet of heartache and trouble, including the deaths of two loved ones, my spirit finally succumbed to my burden one grey November afternoon. For almost two days, I could not bring myself to rise. While I mostly felt overcome and unable to process much of anything, deep down a sense of humiliation and anxiety stirred. How could I have allowed myself to reach such a state? I trusted in Jesus to help me through anything and everything, so why was I lying on my couch feeling as though I could not go on?

Even as I shamed myself, my family reacted with kindness, patience, and understanding. My son spent hours sitting near me as he worked on his college studies. My husband and daughter picked up the chores I had left undone. I felt both undeserving and worried. My family always depended on my caretaking; maybe they didn’t need me as much as I liked to believe they did.

When I could finally do more than just sleep, I turned to reading. Normally a voracious reader and able to plough through a whole novel in a day, I found myself unable to get through more than a few lines at a time. One verse from Scripture kept drawing me back. I read it many times over: "A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he has brought justice through to victory" (Matthew 12:20, NIV). "I have become a bruised reed and a smoldering wick. I have become of no use to anyone.".

Eventually, I had enough strength to pull out my journal and write down some thoughts in response to the verse.

The fervent prayers of some loved ones, the kind mentoring of a friend, and a booklet on recovering from burnout helped me get back on my feet over the next several weeks. I found myself once again working at my job, ministering to others, and caring for my family with most of my old joy and strength.

Then one day I hit a low spot again, not as bad as the time before, but sadness and doubt troubled my spirit. Not expecting to find anything in particular to help me, I paged aimlessly through my journal while also reflecting on what I might write in it next. Then I came to the note I had jotted weeks before in response to Matthew 12:20.

The words I had written did not hold flashes of genius. They had not been carefully crafted into eloquence and elegance. They were just simple declarations of belief in the promise of the verse I had read and reread.

"You don’t have to worry about being a smoldering wick," I had written to myself.
"You don’t have to apologize for it, or be embarrassed about it, ashamed, guilty, afraid, or anxious.
Jesus is not going to snuff you out.
Instead, he is going to enact justice.
He is going to make things right.
Everything and everyone that have hurt and broken and chipped away at you over this past year, he is going to make right. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But he will."

As I reread this message to myself weeks after I had written it, the plain, simple words of declared belief nudged my spirit once again towards renewed hope and motivation.

We may not plan for it to be so, but sometimes our journals can be tools of hope and healing for our future selves. We may be writing simply to encourage ourselves in the moment, yet we never know when our declarations of faith in one instance of pain and suffering may be just the ministration we need in another time.

Michelle Joy Teigrob lives with her family in Peterborough, Ontario. Her book on grief, Joyfully Star-mapping through Life's Dung-piles, was shortlisted for the 2025 Word Awards.

My Little Book of Words by Peggianne Wright

 

It all started in a dark season of unrelenting grief. I had experienced so many losses in such a short period of time; two beloved fur-kids gone to the Rainbow Bridge, both my darling parents gone home to Jesus, an only sibling who "divorced" me from his life, and a dear sister-friend of over 30 years who decided our lives were "moving in different directions".

It wasn't really an intentional act, that first day I put pencil to paper in a little spiral bound notebook. I can't even recall my motivation for doing so. I suppose subconsciously I had an urge to purge myself of some hard and destructive emotions. Or, maybe I felt it would be a way of motivating me in my writing. It did both.

Each morning, at the conclusion of my breakfast, I would pull out my notebook and randomly think of any word. I'd add it to the index page, scribble a little jot—either a paw print, heart, starburst, etc.—on the title page, and write the word and the date on the fresh page. Then, I would just write. Whatever came into my mind, I recorded it without filters. Once complete, I would write a short corresponding prayer and then add a verse of scripture to reinforce the thoughts I had just logged. Looking back, from that first word, I can now see a pattern that began to emerge: Loss, Sunshine, Music, Silence, Worship, Challenge, Trust, Waiting ...

There is no end to the options available when it comes to journaling. In the past, like so many others, I was attracted to the "new and shiny" objects that would especially be pushed relentlessly at the close of a year. I'd look at these items, my mind's eye picturing the amazing, colourful pages I'd create in a wide margin journal Bible, or the fun digital images I could assemble in a mindfulness and gratitude journal. I'd fork out my Christmas money enthusiastically with high expectations. But I'd realize very soon that the process was either too cumbersome or complicated or time consuming. After just a short time it would be forgotten, left lying in a drawer never to be touched again. And, above all, it hardly felt like honouring God.

Like any kind of journaling, commitment is certainly a part of what makes it meaningful. Trial and error is also a way of learning more about oneself; understanding our strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes when it comes to choosing the right application, testing and strengthening our connection to God. As the seasons of our lives change, so too may our choices for and even against journaling. When we experience these things, we know that the Holy Spirit is working in us.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28 NIV)

In no time, my little process became an automatic response. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months and then years and soon my little book was full. I had named my morning scribbles "First Words…and other random thoughts" and began using them as weekly content on my Facebook page as a way to draw my followers closer to God and to their own healing.

But then I got busy. Over time, I became engrossed with other God-honouring projects He had laid on me. As it always happens, life interferes, routines change, the Lord's plan is rolled out.

My little book got left behind.

So, when on December 30th, I happened across my little book in a pile, I pulled it out and opened it to the last entry. Exactly one year ago on December 30th, I made my last entry. Certainly, I have been blessed and have accomplished much in the meantime. Projects have come to fruition, new relationships established, a closer connection to God cultivated. But also, a fresh new keenness to resume filling my little book with daily entries has filled my heart and awakened my soul.

"Commit everything you do to the LORD. Trust him, and he will help you." (Psalm 37:5 NLT)

Peggianne Wright is a published author and is the founder of the pet parent ministry Paws To Pray, blending her passion for the Lord and all-things-K9 to form this unique, faith-based community. Peggianne is an ardent Bible study student, devoted dog mom, wife of 44 years, and lover of music. Her blogs Spiritual Scribbles and Fur-Kid Fanatics can be found on her website www.PawsToPray.ca and you can follow her on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/PawsToPray/ and on Instagram @Sister_In_Prayer.