Grateful for journaling

I am grateful for journaling.

I'm putting a book together for my family, a family history of sorts,  for Christmas.  In getting my thoughts and memories together I'm relieved and so grateful that I write things down.  I' grateful for scrapbooks of my kids lives from birth to now.  I'm grateful for old journals of when Wayne and I were first married.   I haven't always written faithfully, but I have consistently for over 10 years.

When I sit down on Sunday afternoon to write in front of my computer and go over the past week in our family and some of the things that we did and felt, it doesn't seem like much, but as a body of work, it's pretty impressive.  I've been sending out the WELCH WEEK since 2003 when my parents went on the Scotland mission. 

I've also come to see journaling as a way to really get in charge of my thoughts.  Doing a "thought download" is really helpful.  Just the act of physically writing what's in my head and seeing it on paper is so useful.  I can see where I'm in self pity, or having "manuals" for other people and how they should act and what they should do.

When our church is saying...."we should journal,"  I believe, it's both of these ways...the weekly what we did journaling and the daily what's going on in my head journaling.

Trying to get a family history together has been a process. I've found I'm not a beautiful writer- which I've known for awhile- but I am a story teller and a story keeper.

Once people are gone, we remember them through stories and feelings.   The times we experienced with them, or the things we know about them, and how they made us feel.   Stories are powerful.