I have been prayer journaling for years. For some time, I actually used two separate journals, one for thoughts and ruminations and the other for prayers. Then, a few years ago, I combined the two, at first using a different color ink for prayer than for other entries. Then I shifted again, and began simply concluding my journal entries with my prayers (still in a different color).
Pray Without Ceasing
The lovely Robin and I had just returned home from two weeks in Peru and a week in Tennessee, combining a church mission trip with some vacation time.
Inexpressibly memorable.
Before we left for Peru, I had spent some time categorizing the five years of entries in my prayer blog (bobhostetler.blogspot.com). In doing so, I realized how much prayer carried me through my discouragement, disappointment, and even depression of 2008. I’m soooo glad I was so honest in praying, because going back over 2008 and 2007 provided a map and a timeline of those emotional and spiritual travels—and also drove home how much of an anchor prayer was for me through it all! I knew, of course, that I prayed more than ever before during that time; I guess I just never saw so vividly, all painted on a single canvas so to speak, the full picture of those prayers.
That underscores for me (again) the value of a prayer blog, or prayer journal.
Moods will come and go, Lord,
but let me never be cast down in my heart
like those who have no hope.
I hope in you, Lord God;
I find renewal in praising you,
my salvation and my God.
Photo credit: http://desperatepastor.blogspot.de
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