Thoughts on Journaling from an Emotional Stuffer



I’m an emotional stuffer. I don’t talk to people about my deep struggles. I don’t like being vulnerable. I can write, but I don’t speak well, because I cry too easily. Yay me. But until recently, I didn’t even write down my struggles because growing up with sisters who would steal and read each other’s diaries made me determined to risk no one knowing my “stuff.”

But over the past three years, I’ve started to pick up my pen, jot notes in my journal, be vulnerable to the pages of my notebook. I don’t write consistently. Months will go by between entries. But the more I journal, the more sense I can make of things. It’s relieving to express the confusion, the hurt, the joy to something somewhere. Because I’m a dorky, ex-wanna-be-detective, I have entries that I encode in case someone decides that my journal looks interesting, haha, but journaling has offered me a safe place to express my emotions.

It offers me a place of remembrance of people’s encouragement to me when I’m discouraged. It gives me a place to dump my feelings. To write my fears. To communicate my disappointment, doubt, and dreams. To remember God’s faithfulness. To remember I’m His. To be honest. To take off my mask. To be me.

Sometimes I wonder if it will become a burnable book. If I’ll regret 95% of the things I write. But journaling has truly helped me let out some of the things that I don’t feel comfortable talking with others about. It’s given me an outlet for honesty. It’s a book between me and God, and for the eyes of others only after I’m dead. It’s a place for me to dump out all my complaints and hurt to God, and then to write a verse at the end that says, “But, but, I know You are faithful, I know You see and hear.”

There’s a difference between “lamenting” and “complaining.” Complaining just dumps out, and that’s it, “The end.” Lamenting dumps out as well, but it turns it back to God, trusting Him to be faithful. He wants you to talk to Him about it.

If you’re in a tough place in life right now, where you can’t talk to anyone, don’t stuff it all in. Pick up a pen. Write. Lament to God. And if necessary, develop a code and go with that. Maybe burn the book later, but get it out. I promise, it’s amazing how much it helps.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” – Proverbs 3:5-6 Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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