Penning Prayers on Paper.

Prayers on Paper.  My first journal I nicknamed Penning the Soul because that's what the Lord was doing with me -- writing my heart within the lines of scripture and notes and prayers on paper.  He funneled my emotional spirit using one camp counselor, one little black notebook, and my desire to grow with Jesus.  This counselors prayer journal suggestion began to reaped growth in me, internally.

Prayer journals.  Writing, focused, a way to read and scribble through Scripture, to scrawl thoughts on paper, to keep the brain organized and flowing.  I remember telling a friend a week later on a camping trip about my new prayer journal, with full excitement at such a solution.  And now here I sit, nearly twenty years later, and look at the years of prayers contained in pen.

I thumb through them, noting how many scriptures were circled and underlined and remarked on in my pages.  Remembering the tenderness of my heart to the Lord through the years, and seeing my cries and struggles and rejoices lined out before me.  Without opening, the covers bring back memories, of days in the Philippines, my couch on Krefeld, Taylor breakfast mornings, angered confusion through '09, with boys and trips and dreams in-between.  There's a years notes from a challenge to read the whole Bible, and so many times I laid out life choices with fear and trembling and begging for direction from the Lord.  Oh, how He used pen and paper to grow me closer to him!

I've kept them all these years, thinking some day I may use them in writing.  Perhaps referring back to a time He grew me, or an answered prayer, or a way to mark his work in my life.  But today I pull them out from layers of storage, slightly coveting how tender I used to be, but knowing its not the only way God speaks to me.

I'm thankful for the years of growth he's given me.  I'm thankful for the prayers answered, and unanswered.  For a home to rest my soul, a husband who holds my heart, and ministry that continues to provide hope.  I'm thankful for that young Taylor camp counselor, and direction God continued to provide for me each step along the way.  And tonight as I look at the spread before me, I'm thankful for the way he wrote his Word in my heart through penning prayers on paper.