Journaling for My Heart by Mary Folkerts

 

I pulled a dusty old box from the top shelf in my closet, and immediately, I was transported back to elementary and junior high school. Inside were stacks of letters and tiny pieces of paper filled with the angsty words of teenage girls, passing notes in class. I could spend hours shaking out the dust, opening folded paper and remembering young Mary and her friends. It takes me back to the days that formed me; the bad, the good, the embarrassing and the painful. I am no longer that girl, but it was who I once was.

I’m not sure why I have kept that box of memories, and maybe it’s time to trash it. Or perhaps I’ll leave it for my kids to have a chuckle over someday. The same goes for old notebooks filled with journal entries I started, with good intentions to document my days. My mom faithfully kept a diary, and I thought it was a wonderful idea. Inevitably, there were many stops and starts over the years, but I do find it fascinating to read the entries. For me, it’s like looking through old photo albums, remembering my childhood.

In my adult years, I have been much less faithful about keeping a daily physical journal. The recording of my life has taken the form of calendars, to-do lists, photo galleries on my phone or laptop, and writing articles. These, too, are journals in their own right, returning us to the memories of yesteryear.

Whatever form the documentation of our lives takes, I think it’s important for our legacy and for our own remembering. I have often looked back over something I have written and, with greater clarity, can see how God has worked in my life to grow and change me. There have also been many times when I have needed to reread words to minister afresh to my own heart.

Untangling feelings onto paper, even in haphazard sentences, frees the mind to think more clearly about a situation.

That’s the thing about words—they are perennial. Times may change, cultural norms may shift, but truths don’t change. Journaling our lives, in whatever form that takes, is a life-giving practice. Untangling feelings onto paper, even in haphazard sentences, frees the mind to think more clearly about a situation. And reading back those thoughts years later, disorganized as they may be, can bring a realization of how God works change and growth in us.

And even when not journaling, our writer words are often written to our own hearts, for we, the sick, know well the Cure. We write from our pain as our journals can confirm.


Physician, heal thyself!
taunts at the obvious—
fissures splayed
wide, pinned
like a specimen.
Heads nodding,
prodding,
pointing out the fault
line—
there, see?
But never denied,
each spoon of medicine
dolled out,
two taken in turn.
For the sick
know well the
cure.

Mary Folkerts is mom to four kids and wife to a farmer, living on the southern prairies of Alberta, where the skies are large and the sunsets stunning. She is a member of Proverbs 31 Ministries' COMPEL Writers Training, involved in church ministries and music. Mary’s blog aims to encourage and inspire women and advocate for those with Down Syndrome, as their youngest child introduced them to this extraordinary new world. For more inspiration, check out Joy in the Small Things https://maryfolkerts.com/ or connect on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/maryfolkerts/