I journal all the time. It’s how I work through my feelings and thoughts – and flush out new ideas. I started writing down my feelings when I was in 6th or 7th grade and have not stopped. The neat thing about keeping a journal is that it’s a written time capsule. It gives a glimpse into what past me was feeling at the time. Surprisingly, there are a lot of things I’ve forgotten. And reading through my journals reminds me of those times. I tend to write about both the good and hard times. It’s the in-between times I rarely record because I guess there’s nothing to say.
I’ve learned a few tips about journaling in the several decades I’ve been practicing. One of those is the importance of dating all your entries. There were a few years where I didn’t – not sure why. I realized this was a problem when I was reading through an old entry and had no idea when I wrote it. Sometimes I can decipher the date using clues within the passage but I can only get as far as guessing the year. The month and day remain a mystery. That’s why dating all journal entries is important.
My journals aren’t limited to my daily life and struggles either, I also write short stories and poems. Although I probably wrote more of that genre when I was younger. Since becoming a mother, my brain has turned to mush.
I have a poetry journal where I keep all my creative fiction. But sometimes inspiration hits and I don’t have the energy to fish it out so I use whatever blank piece of paper I can find. Such was the case when I found the following poem written in the back of a notebook.
I don’t throw away spiral notebooks when it still has a lot of blank pages in them. It’s a waste of perfectly good paper. So I threw out the used pages and keep the book to use as scrap paper. And that’s where I found this poem, in the back of an abandoned notebook.
I only wish I knew what was going on in my life at the time to give some context as to why I wrote it. But I have no idea. I can’t even tell you what year I penned it because there are no clues, just a title: “Be”. But it sounds like a prayer I wrote when I was going through some kind of struggle. May it be your prayer if you need a little peace.
“Be” By Alice Thomas
Jesus,
Be my eyes when I can not see
Be my ears when I can not hear
Be my arms when they’re too tired to hold
Be my feet when they’re too weary to walk
Be my courage when my strength is gone
Be my hope when I’ve lost mine
And be my peace when I have none