Reflections

"I will reflect on all you have done and meditate on your actions." Psalm 77:1

From time to time I find myself sitting on the floor in front of my rubbermaid container that houses all of my prayer journals. As I pick each one up and flip through their well-worn pages I am reminded of the feelings and emotions I was experiencing during that time in my life. Some of the journals are more worn, their pages being wrinkled and stained from years of being packed away, while others are weathered and tear stained from the struggles I or that of a loved one was going through at that time.

With each entry, situations may or may not have changed because of my prayer. One prayer being that of direction and guidance in a decision I was having to make, or navigating a road through babies and toddlerhood, to grasping for strength as we walked the road of boys living in teenageville. The next entry might be a prayer of thanksgiving and praising God for His perfect timing and unending love.

Reading through my journals is like watching my life play out on a movie reel in a moment of writing, I have no idea how any of it will turn out at the time, but looking back I see God's hand moving and guiding me. He answers my prayers in His time and sometimes He is quiet. You see, some of the prayers I prayed long ago I am still praying for today. At times I felt He wasn't hearing me or that my prayer wasn't important enough, but looking back I see how I have grown in my faith. My trust in the Lord was being built with each prayer whether it was answered or not (even the unanswered is the answer for now).

Though we are confined to time, God never has been. When I write a prayer on a fresh page of a new journal, God already has seen the very last entry of that journal. He knows the answers even before I know what my prayer will be for that day or the year ahead.

I can only imagine if I love rereading old entries of my prayers that I now know their outcome, how much more He must love to hear our prayers, even when He has heard them before and has already seen the outcome.

As I lovingly hold and scroll through the pages of my old journals and am reminded of the path I have traveled during all those different times, I treasure them because what that represents to me is the journey God and I have been on together. It is a time that from the beginning of the new journal all the way to the very last entry my soul knows Him deeper than when the journal was new.

"Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.' (Isa. 46:10,11)

Writing the present before it becomes a forgotten past is one of the best ways to look back and remember all that the Lord has done. It is in the journey of walking daily with Christ that life unfolds, and every entry creates a greater story, which will become a testimony for Him.

I love you & He loves you more!

Lord, Thank You for instilling in me long, long ago the need to write my prayers to You. In looking back and seeing You work in my life and my loved ones lives it makes me look forward with greater hope. They are my love letters to You and I thank You for them. In Jesus' name. Amen.