Writing my way back to God isn’t just about using my journaling practice to thank God for the bright future I believe will one day be my reality. Writing my way back to God also means leaning into gratitude and thanking God for my life as it is right now. Even in the midst of cancer, chemo, and the COVID-19 crisis, I am unbelievably blessed.
Here are 30 things, people and places I love about my life right now.
I was a freshman in college when I first started keeping a prayer journal. Merging my love for writing with my love for God was exactly what I needed to take my faith to another level. My prayer journal became a collection of love letters to God. My prayers became poetry and suddenly God was everything and everywhere. God was a post-workout smoothie. God was the sun kissing my brown skin when I would lie on the quad reading. Once on New Year’s Eve, I felt God with me on the dance floor of a night club.
Prayer has not made me immune to crises of faith. These crises usually happen when so-called Christians are being racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic in Jesus’ name. I stop going to church and I start questioning everything – until I remember the God I fell in love with so many years ago.
As a Christian, I strive to have childlike faith in God, but the book The Edge of Everywhen by A.S. Mackey reminds me that sometimes even children can struggle to believe in the goodness of God when times are tough. But this novel offers a message of hope that will prove particularly poignant for writers and readers who believe words can change lives.
I started asking myself this question earlier this year as I began to delve into this ancient personality typing system that has seen a resurgence of popularity and been thrust in the mainstream in the past few years.
The Enneagram teaches that there are nine different personality styles in the world. Each type has a distinct worldview and underlying motivation that affects how that type thinks, feels, and behaves.