Journal Your Way to God in 2012

In 2003, I had a prayer journal. I started it about six months before I began my daily journal. The difference between a prayer journal and a daily journal is this: a writer captures his thoughts and fears and joys and experiences and dreams and disappointments in a daily journal while a believer documents his prayers and petitions in a prayer journal. Both are excellent ways to document spiritual growth, and I highly recommend starting some kind of faith-based journal in 2012.

I found my prayer journal from 2003 awhile back. I was surprised to discover that every request had been answered, but one.*

I had asked God for a very special thing - that He would restore my father's health. My father passed away on December 28, 2003. Not only had Our Lord not restored my father's health, He had called him into eternity.

That one unanswered prayer was not God's will. While there are probably many reasons why it was not God's will, one reason was that his death was the catalyst for my eventual conversion and journey to the Catholic Church.


Quite simply, if Dad hadn't died, I wouldn't have become a seeker. And Jeremiah is right when he speaks for the Lord, saying: Seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart.


Before that moment, I didn't truly seek God. Why? Because I thought I already had it all put together. Strange how the death of a loved one changes all that.


Prayer has been a part of my life for many years. I know that God answers prayer. I know that He does not answer prayers in the way we hope He would answer them - sometimes anyway. When that happens, it is because God has something far greater for us than our limited minds can conceive.


Like conversion.


Like eternity.


This blog is a reflection of my journey, a window into that precious daily journal that holds the full story of how I became Catholic by grace.


It has also become something of a prayer journal because prayer is essential in this faith journey. I read recently that St. Teresa of Avila said, "I am certain of it that Our Lord will eventually bring to the harbor of salvation, the one who gives himself to prayer."


There are many reasons why we should pray. This may be the most important one of all.

May you discover the joy of sacred writing in 2012.

Blessings!

*We ought to be persuaded that what God refuses to our prayer, He grants to our salvation.– St. Augustine