All I Wanted For Christmas by Bob Jones

 

Do I journal?

Every Christmas, our family draws names for gifts. Whoever pulls my name gets the easiest assignment of all.

Buy Bob a journal.

By mid-December, I already know what’s coming. And honestly, I’m fine with that. The absence of surprise is not a loss—it’s a quiet reassurance that the people who know me best still know me.

Some journals arrive with an inspiring quote embossed on the cover. Some are simple coil bound notebooks. Others have leather covers that are soft to the touch. The best ones include a handwritten note on the inside page—usually a sentence or two reminding me that this gift isn’t just about paper but about paying attention to my life and an encouragement to keep writing.

Stack them all together and the pile stands just over four feet tall.

50 Years of Journaling

My first journal dates back to 1976. I was a young guy listening to a speaker who encouraged us to develop the habit of journaling. “Write down your experiences,” he said, “so you can look back and remind yourself of God’s faithfulness.” That idea stuck. I picked up a notebook (the Rad Dog cover) and started writing—and never really stopped.

Open any of my journals to a random page and you’ll likely find one of a few things:

· reflections on a Scripture that spoke to me that day

· a moment I experienced or a person I encountered

· a quote from something I was reading

· gratitude—for my wife Jocelyn, our family, my calling, or my friends

· a prayer request, or a record of an answered prayer

· occasionally, a photo glued to the page because the image told the story better than words could

· and now and then, a brutally honest self-assessment where I gave myself only a passing grade as a husband, father, or pastor

If the journals tell one consistent story, it’s this: I have always been my own worst critic. That critical voice has been a persistent nemesis—one I’ve worked to distance myself from over the years, with varying degrees of success. Journaling has often been the place where that voice showed up most clearly, but also where it slowly lost some of its power.

A Lamy Pen

Something shifted in 2016 when a friend made an unexpected suggestion: “You should try writing with a fountain pen. There’s a sensual experience to it.”

I was skeptical. But curiosity won. I tried one—and I was hooked. Writing slowed down. The act became more intentional, more embodied. Words mattered again, not just what I wrote, but how it felt to write them.

Today, I’m still journaling. I’m still filling pages. And I’ve even managed to pass the habit along—two of my four granddaughters now happily write with Lamy fountain pens.

I suppose that’s how these things work. What begins as a simple practice becomes a way of paying attention. And if you stack up enough pages, you don’t just see your words—you see your life.

How about you?

I'll leave you with a James Clear quote about the power of pausing: "If you never pause, you confuse activity with effectiveness. Make time to think. Walk outside. Sit quietly. Create space. Then move again, but this time on purpose."

 

 

I am looking forward to reading the various means and purposes of Inscribe writers use for journaling.