David:          Hi friend, this is going to be more of an interview than it is our normal dialogue approach. And that’s because my wife, Karen is more informed on the topic at hand than I am. Through my adult years, I faithfully wrote down a brief account of what I did each day. Took me about five minutes or so. By way of contrast, Karen’s journal is just about daily. And I think there’s a big difference between what the two of us have been doing.

Intro:             Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:          Recently Karen, you have been going through your journal. You’ve journaled for years, for decades actually. Talk about that experience.

Karen:          I have kept a journal for 48 years.

David:          It’s a long time.

Karen:          So, you have a shelf in one closet that’s just filled with spiral ring binders. And then I would take 10 years’ worth of journals, and I would put them in a big binder with those great big three ring clasps on them just for storage purposes in the organization.

But they’ve been sitting on a shelf. I mean, I keep a daily journal for the most part. And I have for, as I said, 48 years. So, I said, okay, my poor kids, we’re doing end of life purging or the sort of things that will make it easier for our children once we go. Our adult offsprings, they’re all in their 50s. And I thought, “Well, before I ditch them, I probably should go through them.”

So, I started pulling them off the shelves and going through them. I discovered in the big binders, there were about 20 years’ worth of journal in those binders. So, I started to go through it, David, it has been an extraordinary journey into the past. And apart from reminding you of the things you totally forgot and the people you were very close to you that you have totally forgotten, my journals are really what called the more of a spiritual journal in that I have recorded the work of God in my life. And I began with a format, sort of a formula that helped me. And the first thing I would do is to praise God for some kind of quality. And the journal that I have been working in this week, yesterday, praised him that he was such a detail-oriented guy. How do you keep track of all the details and all the lives of the people through the centuries? It’s pretty amazing when you think about it.

David:          Let me just stop you for a second. I’m picturing this is not a stack of journals.

Karen:          They’re on the shelves. Last year, I combined them all and sorted them out according to decades and put them in these big red binders that had big rings. They’re like almost two inches, two or three inches.

David:          And how many of those?

Karen:          There probably is, in each big red binder, I would say 10 years in each binder.

David:          And I would say that you’ve been going through these.

Karen:          Yeah, I have wanted to just organize them. I’ve been re-reading them. And as I said, they really are spiritual journals. They’re a journey of my spiritual life as well as my daily life.

David:          And I confess to you that what you have done is undoubtedly better than what I’ve done. Mine are not interesting. Are yours interesting?

Karen:          Yeah, they’re fascinating.

David:          Ok.

Karen:          And the other thing, David, is my formula of writing is often the personal memoir. That’s the literary category that a lot of my writing would fit into in my books. And I didn’t know about that category until just recently. So, in some ways, these have fed my writing life as well.

David:          You were talking about you start with the writing and the praise.

Karen:           I always put the date down. And then I go into a praise prayer in which I recognize the presence of the Lord. And this, as I said before, is I praised him that he was the God of details, the one who could keep track of the hundred million, million details in people’s lives through the centuries. And then I will have a section of Thanksgiving.

David:          So, this is actually a part of your prayer life.

Karen:          This is my prayer life.

David:          I just wrote down what I did on the day.

Karen:          No, it’s not. So, I thank him for something he’s done the day before or I recognized his hand. And this week it’s been thank you for pushing me to get into my journals. If I just ditched them, I would have missed a rich experience of looking back and then saying, “Oh, yes, I remember those people.”

I hadn’t thought about them for decades. People, we were close to once. I remember that I pleaded for forgiveness for this sort of attitude. And I write those confessions out in my prayer journal as well.

David:          So, this has been going on for a long time.

Karen:          Yeah.

David:          And how far are you in the rereading process?

Karen:          Well, I’ve done it for 10 years. So, I have 48 years in all. I was going to finish it, but I stopped because I needed to reflect on what I was reading. I still am keeping a prayer journal. I write in that almost every day.

David:          So, when you say prayer journal, that’s different from a diary as I think of it.

Karen:          Yeah, I mean, you can make a distinction if you want to. Some people would call their journaling life a diary, but because mine is spiritually foundational, I’m recording my life with God. I’m calling it a spiritual journal.

David:          Okay, so you’re not writing your prayers out as such. You’re writing what’s going on.

Karen:          Well, some prayers I write out, but mostly that’s knee work that you do on your knees. I’m using that figuratively. Close the door and you’re saying spend this time with the Lord. I do those prayers, but I often and always have my prayer journal in my pencil or pen in hand because I find that as I commune with the Lord, there are ideas that I don’t want to lose in the busyness of our life. And so, I try and capture those things that I feel are often the Holy Spirit breathed into me on the page so I can go back to it and say, what was it that I thought I heard? How do we explain this? It’s very subjective.

David:          Could you do the same thing on the computer?

Karen:          I couldn’t. I’m sure there are people who do journals on their computer, but I can’t. There’s something intimate about that pencil and writing it down on the page. First of all, it slows you down, whereas at a computer, I’m just clicking away. And I don’t know, there’s probably a neurological explanation for this that I don’t know anything about, at least for me. I’m not saying that people who journal on their computers are doing anything wrong. I’m just saying I couldn’t. This has become the habit of 48 years and so this is the way I do it.

David:          Well, when you started, there weren’t computers as well.

Karen:          Yeah, they weren’t computers.

David:          So, you get into a certain rhythm of what is going on.

Karen:          So, do you want me to just talk a little bit more about one?

David:          It’s very helpful. Yeah, I can feel emotion even as you’re talking. It’s very meaningful to you.

Karen:          And then go ahead and break in if you have questions, because I think we’re doing this to encourage people who are already journaling to keep on doing it. And then for those who started it and then stopped after a while, maybe you want to pick that up again. And I can tell you what it’s done in my life, as far as making me a better writer, a better person, more in touch with my spiritual journey, and that perhaps would encourage other people.

David:          Just as it’s a little bit from left field asking this question. But is there anybody that comes to mind when you say journaling, say in the Bible, is there anybody who journaled that becomes a model for you?

Karen:          Well, you know, I look at the Psalms and somehow those were recorded. And I know some of the Psalms were songs. King David was the major Psalm writer. So somehow those things were recorded, and they vary definitely a record of his relationship with God, praise, confession, praying for that his enemies will be destroyed. The destruction prayers. We’ve all had those feelings. So, I think that probably the Psalms comes the closest to it. And I am reading through the Psalms right now as well. So, it’s interesting.

David:          Is there a contemporary Psalm writer like that or who talks about journaling?

Karen:          I’ll just name some names of people. We know their names, maybe not in the spiritual category, but these are well known names, and all of these people keep journals.

David:          So, you know what name comes to me when you said that? Anne Frank.

Karen:          Diary of Anne Frank. Wow. What a legacy that was. So, starting early, Leonardo da Vinci.

David:          Okay.

Karen:          Mark Twain.

David:          Okay. I know these people so far.

Karen:          Thomas Edison.

David:          Okay.

Karen:          Albert Einstein.

David:          Wow.

Karen:          Marie Curry.

David:          Ok.

Karen:          And more recently, Richard Branson, Josh Waitzkin. Now he’s the Grandmaster chess player. We don’t know his name as well. Two more. Jennifer Aniston. And Frida Kahau, the great Mexican painter. This is a variety. Just a wide variety.

David:           Basically, what they’re doing in their own style. They’re recording their life.

Karen:          As I was researching this, I thought, “Okay, why do so many people keep a journal or keep a diary? What in the world drives us to do that as humans?”

So, they’re here the benefits, help reduce stress. And I have found that. Get it out in paper and somehow, I can manage the things I have dilemmas over better. Once I write it out, you know, ask for God’s help.

David:          There is the spiritual dimension to what you’re doing.

Karen:          Yeah, exactly. Sharpens the memory and I really need that as you know, I have some softening of the memory. You do too, but not as bad as mine.

David:          You’ve asked me, I don’t know how many times. “What is today?” I’d say,  “Tuesday.” “That was yesterday. What’s today?” “It’s still Tuesday.” It’s hard to keep it all straight.

Karen:          It is. Journaling encourages the achievement of goals. I’ve really seen that. “Help me Lord to do this. I need to finish this project. I do need divine help.” For a lot of time of my life, decades, I was gone almost every other weekend speaking. That is a load to carry. And gardening, I’m an avid gardener.

David:          How long does your normal journaling session take?

Karen:          It can be 45 minutes to an hour.

David:          Okay, so you’re in a totally different category than I was given. I would just write saw, so and so, headline, whatever.

Karen:          But you pray, David, a good couple of hours every day. So, because your diary was that way did not mean that your prayer life was truncated at all.

David:          No, although what you’re saying, I’m missing, I write on paper all the names as I pray for the people.

Karen:           Yes. Right.

David:           But I don’t have any permanent record like you. I wish I had. I do it on paper. Then when I’m done praying, I put it in the waste basket. Yeah, so this is different. So, you have all this record, which is amazing to me.

Karen:          Yeah, just three other benefits. It improves mood and I have found that to be really true.

David:          So, you’re kind of down on the day and all this.

Karen:          Out of sorts a bit. And you work in your prayer journal, and you work that all out with God. You make a list of “Lord, help me not to be so short tempered. Help me not to be judgmental. You’re not a judge like that. You call out people’s sins, but you love those people.” And then it cultivates what’s called mindfulness. This is being self-aware and that’s a very truncated way to describe mindfulness. Now mindfulness is a very well-used word in today’s society. It’s nothing I knew about earlier in my life, but it is used a great deal in today’s society. And it means taking time to do what I’m doing here. Not necessarily only journaling, but to consider, to pause, to say, “What happened with that? What was behind what they really said and why did I react to all.” You know all of these things? To take time to be mindful.

And then it practices gratitude. And that perhaps has been one of the biggest disciplines that has developed in my life because I’m thanking God every single day that I journal for what he’s done in my life. And then I go back over my prayer request and say, “Well Lord, you answered this one” and then make a little note of how. And so, it definitely has developed gratitude as a state of being.

David:          Okay, I would say that you’re talking actually about prayer journaling, which helps to define for people what it is we’re sharing. I ask you to write down in a sentence what it is you would say to someone. I’ll read what you’ve given me.

Christians who develop the discipline of prayer journaling will not only keep a record of their lives but will discover the extraordinary ways God has interacted with them. Are you kind of guaranteeing that?

Karen:          I’ll guarantee it.

David:           Okay.

Karen:           If they want to go into the discipline of journaling and do it long enough. And I would say, if you’ve dropped the journaling habit or you’ve never done it, give yourself a year. Because just a day here and a day there, I don’t think you reap those benefits from that kind of inconsistency. I think you have to have and develop regular practice.

However, if you skip a day or two, if you skip a week, don’t flagellate yourself. This is part of developing discipline. You just go back to it and start again and keep yourself going back to it. And then the habit and time, if you’re working at that habit, like any habit, then begins to take its own place in our lives.

And so, we don’t have to work so hard to remind ourselves. I will guarantee, I think I can almost promise this, that if someone keeps a prayer journal for you, the benefits of it will be so remarkable that you will continue on after that year.

David:          Okay, I’m going to go back to your sentence. Christians who develop the discipline of prayer Journal will not only keep a record of their lives but will discover the extraordinary ways God has interacted with them.

Karen:          Yes, I agree with that. I still agree with that sentence.

David:          You still agree with it. Okay. So, somebody, probably, you need to get a binder that has a large enough sheet of paper in it that you can write.

Karen:          Some formal way of doing it, not just scratches.

David:          What do you do if you say, I can’t remember how to spell this word.

Karen:          I just forgot about it. You sound it out, you don’t have to get the dictionary.

David:          You’re sounding kind of hyper-spiritual, almost. I have to say, only one time have I ever looked at your prayer journal, because I’ve been afraid that if there’s something here that says,

Karen:           Complaining about a certain guy?

David:          Please help David. He’s so immature. Whatever. Yeah, I have only one time and I started to read and then all of a sudden you stop praying and you need to get baking soda. And it was a list of groceries you were going to find. How do you explain that?

Karen:          Well, that was just what came to mind at that moment. Now, I have, since you read that, I’ve been trying to have, I called my kitchen notebook, where I make the list of things that would include that list.

So, they don’t come up in my prayer journal, but sometimes your life is so full that you think, If I don’t write it down now, and particularly not with memory lapses. So, I have to keep that kitchen.

David:          What about phone calls that come while you’re doing this?

Karen:          I’ll take those, but I can get back to my journal after I get a phone call.

David:          Okay, so we will know that this has been beneficial to someone, if maybe a long… do you need a year?

Karen:          Yeah, I think a year is a really remarkable commitment to God. And to make a commitment to keep a prayer journal is a commitment to recording his daily work, as much as you’re able to in your life.

David:           Thank you for sharing.

Karen:           Thank you for your questions. It’s been good to think this through for me.

David:          I think it has value. Just a question, and I don’t know how in the world you’ll answer it. Say in a given church on adults from high school on up to elderly people like we are, say you would get a cross-section of 100 people in a given church. How many of them do you think journal their prayers?

Karen:          This is a pure guess. I’m saying 20%.

David:          Wow, you really think so?

Karen:          Well, I think it’s such an extraordinary experience for those who keep at it. Those to whom it becomes meaningful, that it’s probably more than we know. It would be interesting to ask who keeps a prayer journal or keeps a spiritual journal, something like that, keeps a diary, just a regular diary.

David:          Probably those who keep a diary on a regular basis would be more than those who do prayer journaling.

Karen:          But it’s easy to turn a diary into a prayer journal. So, if they have that practice, that habit in their lives, then I would encourage them to expand it even more. If they feel led to, they’re being pressed inwardly to do that by the Holy Spirit.

David:           Thank you for sharing.

Karen:           Thank you. Good to talk about it.

Outro:          You’ve been listening to the Before We Go Podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all-lower-case letters, hosts@beforewego.show.

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