I was introduced to “prayer journaling” toward the end of high school. Out of sheer necessity, I took up the practice.
Frustrated with prayer times filled with distracted thoughts and repeated episodes of falling asleep, I started to write out my thoughts to God in a notebook, and soon found myself in the habit of doing this regularly.
I never guessed that God would use the words I have penned over the years in those prayer journals to encourage me in times of deepest doubt.
I picked up a few of my older prayer journals one day. As I read through the prayers of desperation written out on almost a daily basis, it struck me how many times I asked God to meet me where I was, lift my spirits, or take away the pain. He didn’t just answer a few of those written prayers.
Reading through the journals, I saw a pattern of asking God followed by a journal entry written within the next few days of how my spirits had been lifted in some small way, how the pain had subsided a little, or how He met me where I was. This happened time and time again in my journals. No, it was not a lightning bolt healing, or even to the point where I recognized the pattern when it was happening.
But, as I read these journals years later, I can see that God consistently did what I couldn’t do for myself.