Sunny Side Up: Journal your journey—it will teach you

By Kathleen Gibson

Sometimes, when I sit to write, I have no clue what’s coming. I’ve done this weekly for a quarter of a century; you’d think words would come as naturally as scratching an itch. They don’t. Not anymore.

When I started writing Sunny Side Up in 2001, I kept an almost daily journal, as I’d done for years. I have numerous hard copy journals, and more entries on computer. My scribbles reflected my thoughts about life. We had two growing children and several pets. We travelled, made major moves and had a full life as a clergy couple in churches reaching from Vancouver Island to Ontario. God was good. (Still is.) Life was good, too, and we lived in the thick of it.

Problems? Some. And while a few seemed like monoliths at the time, we survived them. They taught us things. How not to major on minors. How to grow a thicker skin. How to depend on Jesus when it seemed no one else was trustworthy. How to trust God, even when he felt distant. How to forgive, both others and ourselves. I journalled all those things. Many of my earlier Sunny Side Up columns included paragraphs lifted from those entries.

I rarely journal these days, but I’m considering hollowing a few minutes out every so often to return to my old practice. Once, in a fit of fantasy, I thought perhaps someone in future generations of family may think my old journals interesting. I don’t believe that anymore. If anyone does pick them up before I destroy them, they may do so only to prove this old bird was the wingnut they always believed me to be.  

Should I begin practicing the discipline of journalling again (because it is a discipline), I hope my entries would have a different tone. A more grateful, less complaining one. A record of God’s faithfulness, more than of my own many flaws. A gathering of gratefulnesses. A remembrance of glimpses of God’s love—and my, how he loves the world; the broken and flawed humans he created. All reaching to fill that empty spot within, which can be filled with him alone.

My father kept a journal sometimes, especially on vacation. I have some of those pages and I treasure them. He recorded miles travelled, destinations reached, prices of gas and how many gallons purchased. And when he had car trouble, he recorded that too, and repair costs. At home, he recorded weather. No feelings. No deeper interior journeys. Nevertheless, I trace my father’s handwriting, remembering his capable, weathered hand sliding across the page, and feel closer to him.

I also remember Dad’s hands moving across other, thinner pages, turning them with reverence. His Bible. Till he couldn’t read anymore, Dad read God’s word. God’s journal, of a sort. That’s the one I really want people to pick up. The Word from the Word—the Jesus who bears that name. If you haven’t read a Bible with an open, searching heart, do that. It may change your destiny.

Sunny Side Up has inspired readers with glimpses of everyday life and Christian faith since 2001. Contact Kathleen at sunnysideup.press@gmail.com