Lord, Let Me Declare

On my nightstand, one book has had the place of honor for a decade. This book, which began life as a charming black-covered creation with vivid red corners, is now a shabby stack of over 200 bound papers. The cover is long gone, the edges are curling, and the first ten pages have escaped the binding. This book, you see, began in the ninth year of my life, is my journal. Her name is Louisa, and here I offer you a look at my life through the last decade, complete with authentic spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors (oh, my!).

January 1, 2000, 12:00 AMHappy Year 2000, Happy Millinium!!!! Happy Century!
Nothings happening. What I mean is, the lights are on and everything!!!
I feel…joyous!!

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2000The Bird-duck is gone. Lauren brought it outside to play. A cat—Tigger actually—scared duck into the bushes. We’ve been looking for duck all evening. But I yielded duck to God. It’s God’s duck. And this is hard to say, even if God wants duck to die—that, that is alright.
Saturday, June 9th, 2001…When Papa came home…he had a surprise for us—and it’s better than a birthday—the strike is OVER! I want to shout, to tell the world! Praise the Lord! So we’ve been enjoying our Papa for the week!

Sunday, February 3, 2002So that my children will always know when I lost my last tooth!
I ask Mama and Papa when they lost there last tooth—same answer—“I don’t know.”
So I will always remember.
“I was 11, it was February the third, I was eating a carrot.” =)

Friday, May 10th, 2002It’s born! It’s born!! Can you believe it? HE’S born! Jonah Adam (? They’re not sure about the middle name). He’s 6 lbs 15oz and 19”. Sounds small!

Tuesday, April 1st, 2003I am quite disappointed with myself. I am horrid. And I don’t mean to give you the same old self-pitying ‘sob story.’ My main faults are 1. Lack of serving, 2. Lack of humbleness (i.e. pride, but ever so much more than that, like lack of respect etc, etc.) I am also extraordinarily bossy. It’s to bad you are not ‘real.’ If you were I would be begging you to pray for me! That is the only hope….

Sunday, May 4th, 2003On Thursday we left for Spokane. Today we ran in Bloomsday! All year we’ve been training for it. It has about 60,000 people who run in the race…It is 7 ½ miles (12 kilometers) long and has “Doomsday” hill, which is a rather long steep hill. My time was 1 hour, 17 min and 56 seconds. We arrived 1 hour and 15 minutes before it started. It was cold, especially since we only had shorts and t-shirts on. To entertain themselves, people were bouncing balls in the air. Then they used tortillas!

Saturday, May 1st, 2004I was thinking; why do I keep a journal? Well for one thing it is to record my growth in the Lord.
The main second reason is for my kids....It is my proof. I was a kid once to, with kid-struggles and kid-problems. Not only that, but I have lived through once-in-a-lifetime events (i.e. September 11 etc).
If my kids are ever reading this then I want to tell them something. I am only 13; perhaps your age. Only a kid; just like you…And across the decades that separate my childhood and yours—Jesus is the only way. Give him everything. Especially your conscience. After reading this, you must know that that is my biggest struggle. Remember that if you are ever convicted to confess something.
(Was that corny?)

Tuesday, February 21, 2006Tonight was Philharmonic practice. Last week was chair tests, and I kept my principal second violin place! I’m really excited, and I think that the leadership position has really helped my playing and my confidence. Also, I’m really enjoying taking lessons from ---. Now, the only thing I need to complete my “musical bliss” is some music students. That would be a dream come true.

Thursday, April 6, 2006…at the funeral today, someone….[read] a verse that she said Aunt Ina quoted; my eyes filled with tears when I heard it, and I resolved right then and there that that verse would be my life verse. Lauren just let me borrow her Bible, and I looked it up, so here it is:
“Oh God, You have taught me from my youth; and to this day I declare Your wondrous works. Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come.” Psalm 71:17-18

Saturday, Aug 15, 2009So another year has passed and it seems that I am suddenly and inexplicably nineteen years old….And then I realize that, in the blink of an eye, I will be gone. And you, dear reader, may be my daughter or son, my grandchild, or even my greatgrandchild, wondering at the impossibility of me being 19 with the same struggles, hopes, and dreams that you have.
Happy Birthday—and don’t take any of it for granted.

And there you have it. As of January 1st, 2010, 2:13 AM, I finally finished this book. She will live out the rest of her life in leisure while I turn to a new, slick, leather-bound, slim volume that's been waiting patiently for several years. Somehow, though, it just won't be quite the same.

Do you keep a journal? Have you ever kept one in the past? When I first began mine, I remember modeling it after those of the great men and women of faith, such as David Brainerd, whose personal accounts still inspire and convict centuries later. I certainly knew that I wanted my journal to have no resemblance to a catty, secretive, tell-all "diary." If you do write, are your purposes the same as this and the ones I mentioned in the entries above?