I am like you–I had books and books of horrible stuff that I journaled before I became a Christian, and I burned them all ceremonially with family and friends. Sometimes I wish I had them back just to see what I wrote, but almost immediately I am glad I burned them. I imagine few things could be more depressing than reading them again.

I do journal, but I confess that I am not as consistnt as I should be. Thank you for the encouragement to be consistent.

I can’t seem to get away from it though. There is someting about writing that brings substance to a passing thought. Now that I am redeemed by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit, those passing thoughts may very well warrant the endowment of more substance.

I’ve been receiving tons of encouragement to begin journaling again. John Piper can’t say enough about it, other voices keep pushing their way into my consciousness with the same message. Now the Puritans and Susan Hunt.

It’s like when I was 18 and determined to never have children. God used a handful of Shakesperean Sonnets to convince me that I should have children. It was during my YWAM DTS. I was sitting on a picnic table in the campus quad. I actually got so agitated by what I now know was the Holy Spirit prodding me, that I looked up from my book and yelled out in frustration to God, “Fine, I’ll have kids!!”

I love books like this.

“An irreligious woman is also an ungrateful one” from Female Piety

“The life God plants in us develops its own virtues, not the virtues of Adam, but of Jesus Christ. Watch how God will wither up your confidence in natural virtues after sanctification, and in any power you have, until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus.” From Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.

“Wisdom is the link between fear of the Lord and a virtuous life.” Susan Hunt

“For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by his fatherly care, that he is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond him-they will never yield him willing service.” John Calvin

“To insist that men verbalize or socialize their faith in the way woman do is to demean their maleness.” Susan Hunt

“…the fact that place and position have next to nothing to do with happiness; that we can be wretched in a palace, radiant in a dungeon.” Elizabeth Prentiss, Puritan.

“There is a sensitive creativity and a holy abandon about her actions.” Susan Hunt writing about Mary who poured costly oil on Jesus head and feet and wiped it with her hair.

“The passage to piety is brokenness over our sin, but the passage begins with a true knowledge of God and ends with true obedience to Him.” Susan Hunt

“How often we want to fix our problems, and what we should want is Jesus.” Susan Hunt

I was also challenged to take a good look at the things that I spend my time on. Do I “long for such nearness to Him that all other objects shall fade into comparative insignificance”? pg. 154 And do I do it for Jesus, “regardless of recognition or results”? Pg. 157

Finally, I was challenged by the call to brokenness. So many times we are broken through our circumstances and look to God because of them. Sometimes this is called a “foxhole spirituality” because when our circumstances ease we lose our focus on Christ. But on earth we will always struggle with our sin nature. God may use circumstances or other people to expose our sin nature, but I think He does this in part to show us who He is and the magnificence of His holiness and love so that we bow in gratitude that we are His. As time goes by, we learn to live—though imperfectly—in humility and brokenness. I love what Susan Hunt says on pg. 159: “The passage to piety is brokenness over our sin, but the passage begins with a true knowledge of God and ends with true obedience to Him.”