A look at the thoughts of the past.

Today I spent some time reading a journal of mine that has been written in from my Freshman year of college all the way up to the present. When I say journal, I don't mean a daily journal. I don't really have the discipline for that as I wish I did. I journal about once a week. Or a few times a month during busy times. It's encouraging to read, however not easy. It's nice to revisit joyous times but it is rewarding to relive hard and confusing times. It's the times where I am really struggling with God about something or having questions about things that really make me who I am. Granted, they aren't so pleasant in the present, but when they move to past their importance becomes visible.  I've changed a lot in some ways, and in some ways not at all. I can't be disappointed in either because it's who I am. I'm quite happy with that. I guess it is hard to believe that God is present in all seasons of life. When the hard, terrible, and confusing experiences of life seem to consume us, it is so easy to forget that God still has control.

Over Everything.   

"He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Colossians 1:17

I'm not in one of those places right now. My days begin and end with a smile. But hard times are ahead. That's just life. It's important to be ready for those trials and periods of peril. It's easy to rely on the Lord when times are easy, but it becomes difficult when it doesn't seem as if He's there. So let the periods of joy and sorrow work together to bring me to a deeper faith and a better knowledge of God's never ending love and provision.  May the examination of these periods become the framework to the augmentation of faith. 

"An unexamined life is not worth living" - The one and only Socrates.