Journal Writing

Today I gave a lesson to my Young Women about the importance of writing in your journal. Last week's activity we made journals, and so today was a perfect time to emphasize the importance of using them. I think at their age (12-13) it's a perfect time for them to pick up their pens, and delve into writing about their feelings and emotions. My journal was a place of solace, and I began loving to write once I began writing in my journal.

Some of the YW lessons I can relate to, and I'm always learning more, but this lesson made me realize how I also need to pick up my pen and begin writing in my journal, again.

I gave the girls a pen with a ribbon-tied list of the following 'Important Things to Include In Your Journal:'

1. Important events, impressions, testimony, and personal feelings.
2. Personal counsel, promises, and blessings received and the circumstances surrounding them.
3. Deaths, births, marriages, baptisms, and endowments.
4. Record goals and progress, personal triumphs, and failures, struggles and how they are met.
5. Current local, national, and world events that impress you or influence your life.

But, this can be the easiest to forget:

6. Simple occurrences in daily life.

My simple occurrences today included getting rid of nervous butterflies as soon as I closed my eyes to say the opening prayer in Sacrament Meeting. Feeling that flutter from playing a beautiful chord while accompanying the ward choir, and seeing the girls I taught eyes open just a little bigger (literally) when something I said inspired them. Taking care of Jeffrey, as he hasn't been feeling well. Making dinner with ingredients like fresh basil, pine nuts, and Orzo pasta.

These simple occurrences, which can feel routine, are things I can easily forget...

Time to write in my journal.