Sunday, May 27, 2012

Words For Future Generations

"This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord."  -Plalms 102:18 I have been thinking about my journal writing lately.  I realize that in trying to find time for everything else, I often times put off writing in my journal.  I tell myself, "I'll write tomorrow." or "I'll write down the big significant events."  But I have neglected it so much that even the thought to write comes less and less.  It is like ignoring a prompting from the spirit, if you ignore it long enough, the Lord stops giving the promptings.   At a family reunion several years ago, my Aunt and Uncle presented our family with journal excerpts from my grandmother's journal.  We each took turns reading these excerpts.  The things we read were not necessarily about big important events in my grandmother's life, but they were her everyday thoughts and feelings.  It was so special and touching to gain insight into her life, to read about this person who has had so much influence in the lives of our family.  Even the use of her vocabulary was cute.   In my own journal writing, I look back at past entries and think, "There is no way I want anybody to ever read this!  It is cheesy and poorly written, it makes me sound silly!"  But who knows, maybe there is something in there, some little thought or event that I wrote about that could touch the lives of my posterity.  So I'm making a new goal to write in my journal more.  Much more!    

2 comments:

  1. You said that the promptings to write in your journal are "like" the whisperings of the Spirit- I think that they ARE the whisperings of the Spirit! And I'm the same way- I always forget to write in my journal and I know I need to. Thanks for this reminder. :-)

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  2. I worked for a summer a few years ago as a research assistant to a history professor who was writing a book on the Mormon Trail. I read through excerpts of a lot of pioneer journals and found the small, seemingly mundane things to be the most interesting. Yes, it was important to know how their wagon companies functioned, how fast they traveled, etc., but I liked the things that revealed how people felt about each other and the small sacrifices they made to show great love. These things probably felt silly and mundane to the writers, but it revealed a lot more about them, their culture, and their experiences than they probably realized.

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