I Am a Prayer Journalkeeper: The Richness of My Experience
Prayer Journal and Letter June 14, 2014, Saturday, 1008 A.M.
Mom,
Hello. I hope you are well on this fine Saturday morning. Thinking and praying for you--always.
I know you want to know how we are here in Virginia. And that is precisely why I write this email, which will be end up being Chapter One of my latest book (with your permission, of course).
For years, I keep fighting it. I surrender. I am not meant to do anything but prayer journal. Why do I keep fighting it? Why else has God allowed the richness of my life experience?
Huh. I never thought of looking at the challenges in my life as a treasure from God--and that makes me rich in Him. Very wealthy. Wow. Wonder of wonders. (Pardon me while I sit here for a moment and try to fully digest what I just prayer journaled, but in form of a letter to you.) I wrote that before I even comprehend what I wrote.
God has allowed the challenges in my life, including the last year and a half, so He could make me rich in Him and His Word. These life challenges are a treasure of great richness to intensify my relationship with Him, my faith, and my growth in Him. Glory!
Wow. I shake my head, blown away by His goodness. What a sacred gift, my life's challenges.
I have been able to, over the last five years, thank the Lord deeply for everything He has done and allowed in my life, including the challenges. For, they have made me who I am today. I thank Him for helping give me this perspective, and my new one of the richness of those challenges.
Wow. Pardon the light bulb moment.
Now, the original reason why I wanted to write this email was to share with you how I am changing, once again (Lord, help us all) what I want to write. I am done fighting it. I know my God-sized life's purpose:
I am a prayer journalkeeper.
Nothing more. Nothing less. This is me. It is all of me--deep and shallow. I am not supposed to be anything but. This is how God made me. Period.
Why hasn't this been enough for me?
That question has stopped me in my tracks. If God made me a prayer journalkeeper, and that is indeed my life's purpose (and, it is), then that is more than enough. This is how He wants me to share Him and His Word with the world, and bring Him glory. This is the sacred thing He wants from me most: To share how I live, in my corner of the world, in faith and how I interact with Him and the Word, through prayer journaling.
Could anything be grander?
Is anything more important?
So, I surrender. I will live as He wants, write what He wants, and share this thing called life with others. I will be the best prayer journalkeeper I can be.
Could life have gotten any simpler? I will live in His will alone and stop living outside of it, which had me hopping in a million other insignificant directions and kept me so busy--and missing Him.
That's the latest here.
I am a prayer journalkeeper.
-- Stacy Duplease, Writer
Sent from Amazon Kindle Fire HDX
(Image credit: Stacy Duplease 2011-2014.)