Listening + Journaling + God = Peace

When I was in d school, one thing that was talked about was creating a listening journal. It was explained as an effective way to tend your heart, opening yourself up to an intimate conversation with God and recording it. I latched onto it the first day I learned about it and grabbed an empty journal from my stash!

It is easy for me to forget to open up my heart to anyone. Any victim of trauma can testify that our general, automatic response with any other human or relationship is to self-protect. I am even more complicated when you add in the fact I was a child growing up with the trauma. Making sure there's walls around my heart and around me became my specialty, but it never brought me peace. Instead, I have realized living like this only closes you off to friendship, love, and growth. 

In the midst of the business of life, my Quiet Time evolves daily and is never exactly the same. I do this on purpose to avoid getting stuck in a rut, to avoid feeling like it is a chore, and to prevent myself from developing a legalistic view of my Quiet Time process that plagues many Christian women. I got so caught up doing other things that I forgot about my Listening Journal!!

There's a lot going on in my inner world these days. I have talked to a few friends about some of it this week. I have also prayed about it for several months. But today, I felt like I needed to really have a conversation with God about a few things. I grabbed my listening journal and began a beautiful conversation that was not only needed, but lifted my spirits.

When I started my listening journal, I knew I was gonna want a consistent color for recording God's responses back to me. I really wanted His presence clear and easy to find later. I decided to pick the color orange for His responses. Then, I learned the following: "Orange is associated with meanings of joy, warmth, heat, sunshine, enthusiasm, creativity, success, encouragement, change, determination, health, stimulation, happiness, fun, enjoyment, balance, sexuality, freedom, expression, and fascination. Orange is the color of joy and creativity." It sounds exactly like God!

Today I opened up to Him about some tough things and He not only listened, but provided some advice. He also was affirming, supportive, gracious, and full of love. It was exactly what I needed to hear to move forward.

I highly recommend a listening journal! It will change your relationship with God in amazing ways!! It will also grow you I'm ways you didn't think were possible.