I got a text on New Year’s Day. It read, “God bless you abundantly this next chapter of life..get out of your journals!!! I love you!!!” I can’t stop thinking about the part, “get out of your journals”. I’ve been a faithful journaler since January 2009. I haven’t skipped more than a day or two throughout every year since then. I love my journals. I call them my prayer journals, and they are full of prayers, big ones and small ones and everything in between. There’s also things like this in there: “I’m scared” or “I am so hurt” or “I blew it again” or “I will never get it right!” Then there’s my favorites, “God, You are so faithful” or “Jesus, thank You for saving me.” or “God, I look to You for this.” Whatever day, hour, mood or season, my heart is poured out on those pages. My daughter has said what is cool about the journals is you can read them either way, starting at the beginning and going forward or starting today and going backwards. Such is the story of all our lives. On Facebook, I’ve seen lots of posts about this “next chapter” for the new year, and I do believe that 2015 can be the most dynamic ever, and it will take courage. So here’s my first courageous leap of 2015, stepping out of my journals a bit and dipping my foot in the water of possibility. I give myself permission to be willing to be more intimate than ever with Him, to be more honest with myself and others – even if I come out being the bad guy – and to be courageous enough to change in whatever way(s) I am supposed to. This first blog post is part of a blogging course I enrolled in, and we were asked to answer the following, so here goes:
- Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal? Because I already keep a personal journal, and I love to write. Public blogging seems just the right balance for me, not too public – my reader stats are nowhere near those of the blogger giants out there – and yet not so private that my thoughts remain buried.
- What topics do you think you’ll write about? God; my past, present and future; things I see highlighted in my life and/or the lives of others.
- Who would you love to connect with via your blog? just about anyone – whoever (or is it whomever) I am supposed to connect with.
- If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished? that words wouldn’t just be words, but that they would have life and meaning and be pointing heavenward.
Special shout out to my husband, Mario G., for praying for me this evening 🙂 I got with the computer and almost had a meltdown because I thought this draft didn’t save before the computer crashed. He remained calm as the computer was restarting, grabbed my hands, said a prayer and then returned to his reading. I looked at the computer screen, logged into WordPress, held my breath and there were the words I’d hoped to see, “Saved Draft”.
That’s all I got tonight, folks. That’s gotta mean something, right? “Saved Draft”?!
Have a blessed, dynamic, courageous New Year!
Love, Sonia Gonzales
john4four 