Book Review: Parallel Lives of Jesus by Edward Adams

Edward Adams is Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at King’s College London. He is the author of Stars Will Fall from Heaven: ‘Cosmic Catastrophe’ in the New Testament and Its World and coeditor of Christianity at Corinth: The Quest for the Pauline Church.  His most recent book, Parallel Lives of Jesus, invites the reader, even the average Joe in the pew like myself, to consider why there are four accounts of the life of Jesus ( Why not just have have one ? ) and take a fresh look at the four canonical gospels and the qualities that make them unique.

The book is divided up into three parts. First Adams discusses his approach to the gospels. Then he looks at each of the Gospels and their narrative features. Finally Adams puts six episodes ( The Baptism of Jesus, The Feeding of the Five Thousand, The Walking on the Water, The Transfiguration, The Death of Jesus, The Empty Tomb ) found in all the gospels side by side.

The author is very thorough and consistent in his examination of the gospel accounts. The fundamental question Adams addresses in the book is not a new one. The author himself notes his research is building on the work of one of his colleagues Richard Burridge who is the author of Four Gospels, One Jesus? What Edward Adams does is draw a structural parallel between the gospels and Plutarch’s Parallel Lives to offer a literary perspective on the gospels. Since the Bible is literature, Adams looks at literary devices like characterization, style, theme and setting. He also connects the structure of ”the same story told four ways” to the films Vantage Point and Roshomon as well as the Iain Pears novel An Instance of the Fingerpost.

Through the comparisons that Edward Adams draws to Plutarch’s Parallel Lives and modern films and novels he effectively gives a perspective on the gospels that is in depth and accessible. Amongst the many other approaches a person can take to reading the Bible ( such as Historical, Archeological, and Cultural ) Parallel Lives of Jesus will be very practical for anyone wanting to develop a deeper understanding of the gospels as well as a helpful resource for Churches and Universities.

The Muir House Book Tour

I am taking part in “The Muir House Book Tour” this month. It began on November 14^th since then a variety of bloggers are posting their thoughts after reading Mary DeMuth’s novel The Muir House. The tour runs through December 15^th. The full list of tour participants is available here.

The Muir House is the story of Willa Muir, a interior designer whose life is turned upside down by an engagement proposal, a sudden fire and a nagging feeling that she can’t move forward in her life until she can accurately remember portions of her childhood that she can’t remember. As she searches for the truth about her past, Willa revisits her home town of Rockwall, Texas and the people from her past who still populate the town.  Can Willa find the strength to trust, find love and move forward with her life?

Mary DeMuth effectively creates a sense of suspense throughout the novels 322 pages. Each chapter effectively answers questions in such a way that you have two or three new questions. And I found the resolution of the story to be satisfying and the themes challenging as well. The story is full of interesting and flawed characters. Willa has an idealized view of how important knowledge is. She seems to think that information is what she lacks. But through the course of the story I think she finds that informed relationships are what she needs.

The setting of the story helps illuminate some of the recurring themes of the novel. During her visit, Willa stays in her childhood home. It was once a funeral home but is now a bed and breakfast with themed rooms highlighting famous walls from around the world. Willa, her parents, Genie and others all deal with the walls they have up in their relationships. They wall people out to avoid hurt. But I like what Willa’s friend Rheus tells her “…some folks close doors they wish they hadn’t.” This is true of a lot of characters in this story. Reading the book reminded me to be open to risk relationships with people even when it may be emotionally challenging sometimes. It reminded me of the way of forgiveness.

Everyone is broken in some way and we all have walls of some kind that we put up in our lives to shut out hurt. But what good things get shut out along with the bad? Thinking about this reminds me of what C.S. Lewis said:

“Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.”

I think everyone can find the love Jesus offers which allows them to appropriately give and receive love to others. On my better days, I go to God when I fear I might lose someone close to me and anyone can go there. That’s the amazingly personal and extensive love of Jesus. I found reading The Muir House was a good and challenging reminder to hold tight to Christ and remain open in the relationships around me.

Book Review: A Stand Up Guy

Publisher: Zondervan

Author: Michael Snyder

A synopsis

In Michael Snyder’s new novel A Stand Up-Guy Oliver Miles works as a night security guard at the Harrington hotel where frequent reports of robberies and ghost encounters keep him and Mattie, the attractive and sneaky night auditor, guessing. But few dream of becoming a night security guard or an auditor for that matter. So Oliver spends his off hours pursuing his comedy career and Mattie writes songs when she isn’t crunching numbers. As time goes on, the cases go unsolved, security cameras are installed, and hunches turn into accusations. Oliver and Mattie’s relationship grows and each uncover hard truths about the others families that test their relationship. The question then becomes will the truth discovered about Oliver’s mother and Mattie’s father strengthen their relationship or break it?

My personal reading experience

I almost didn’t finish this book. But I did and I am glad that I did. I think I expected the story to be funnier than it was. But at the same time I think after finishing it I see it as a story about an aspiring comedian and not a comedy. Perhaps genre expectations, though sometimes helpful for both readers and writers navigating the ocean of books available to read, can be somewhat of a hindrance to seeing characters clearly. I find stories of aspiring anything really quite interesting. I’m an aspiring writer and also used to be a guitarist in a metal band not too long ago and so I can relate. The characters in A Stand Up-Guy had to make tough choices that must be made by any artist who wishes to develop an audience and also maintain healthy relationships with those they are already close to. The internet has exacerbated the tension between these two desires dramatically. This made the themes very timely. I found the story to be far more tragic at times than I expected but overall the story was a challenging, thought provoking and satisfying read.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through NetGalley.com. <http://www.netgalley.com> I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Book Review: Wrapped in Rain

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Author: Charles Martin

Wrapped in Rain is the story of internationally celebrated photographer Tucker Mason. He returns home to Alabama from his work and is reunited with his ex-girlfriend(Katie) and her son who are seeking refuge from a violent ex husband. Soon they are out looking for Tuck’s brother Mutt who has escaped from a mental hospital. But it turns out Tucker’s brother is not the only one who hears voices. Tucker communicates with his dead Nanny Miss Ella from beyond the grave as he deals with his anger towards his abusive alcoholic father Rex. Will Tuck give in and choose the life of self centeredness, greed, anger, and alcohol he learned from his father? Or will Miss Ella’s no nonsense paternal voice be able to get Tuck, Mutt, and Katie on the straight and narrow ?

The author of the book, Charles Martin, maintains interesting tension till the very end and what creates that tension varies. But there are very little loose ends left after the novels 300 or so pages. Some points in the story felt less than plausible top me but these developments created interesting conflict and I was willing to drop my skepticism in the name of story. Wrapped in Rain finds its structure and strength less in a series of linked events and more in the transformation of its central character Tucker.

One complaint I had was with the character development of Rex, Tucker’s father. He felt a bit flat. All through the book there’s basically nothing to like about him or make the reader sympathetic. This is something that might stem from the difference between storytelling and theology. From a theological standpoint you don’t have to understand someone to forgive the way they treat you, but it helps. And it is a requisite for believable characters that play as important a role in this story as Rex does that they have likeable qualities as well as flaws or some exploration into how those flaws developed. Rex is both a father and a son and I think shedding light a little on what his childhood was like may have made him a more interesting character.

Tuckers nanny Miss Ella is flat in very different way. She is the closest thing to a real mother that Tucker has but at times it feels like she is less of a person and more a vehicle for the application of Bible verses to situations in the story. Charles Martin develops Tucker well on the other hand. We’re in his head for most of the book and see him as a conflicting paradox of a man that hides from the messy reality of relationships behind his camera and busy travel schedule at times and in other times comes through as an emotionally available friend tested and proven through adversity.

I feel like Charles explored dialogue more than any other literary device in this book with mixed results. I had to read the dialogue between Tuck and the voice of his dead nanny several times before I got it on a few occasions. Then at other times, particularly near the end, Tucker’s dialogue with other characters sounded contrived and didn’t match his personality. He sounded like he had a degree in Christian counseling or was reading aloud from the pages of Wild at Heart. Hearing Tucker talk about boys and baseball earlier in the novel seems to flow a little more naturally and is rooted more in who he is as a character.

The story is mostly told from the point of view of Tucker and Miss Ella who speaks to Tucker from beyond the grave. This may be off-putting or confusing to some not familiar with the Bible. About a boy or Big Fish might speak to you better. Wrapped in Rain explores the sometimes conflicting co existence of the current medical health profession and the Biblical narrative which reflects a time when medicinal practices were more mystical than scientific and “demons” were far more widely accepted explanations for some behaviors. But by the same token the cursing and sexual content in About a boy or the lack of religious discussion in both it and Big Fish may frustrate others. Wrapped in Rain will speak to you better. There is very little sexual content or language in Wrapped in Rain. It is however far more violent than Big Fish or About a boy, though in its defense, the story is an exploration of “turning the other cheek” as Jesus would say it.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Book Review: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Published by Penguin Books

In 1881, fresh out of medical school at the University of Edinburgh, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sat in his empty medical practice in Portsmouth and waited for new patients seeking his help. As few patients darkened his door Doyle had to find some way to bide the time. He began writing and publishing short stories and soon Sherlock Holmes was born. Holmes was inspired by Doyle’s teacher and mentor Joseph Bell who was known for his power of observational insight and deduction.

First published together in 1893, these stories chronicle the ever increasing fame and renown of Sherlock Holmes detective work throughout London and beyond as told through Holmes faithful friend Dr. Watson. It features stories like “The Silver Blaze,” “The Musgrave Ritual,” and my personal favorite “The Resident Patient.” Sherlock Holmes stories were by far Arthur Conan Doyle’s most beloved and popular of all of his writings, much to Doyle’s resentment. For him passion and success were not often words found in the same sentence. He felt most passionate about his writings on the subject of Spiritualism yet his writings on the subject did not fare well with audiences. He was knighted for his work in the Boer War and also wrote a book on it called  The War in South Africa. Though few associate him with anything other than Sherlock Holmes.

From a literary stand point there is no wonder that this would be the case. The stories are fit exercises in minimalism and have influenced many a writer. John Le Carre remarks on this in the introduction to The Annotated Sherlock Holmes. “Peek up Conan Doyle’s literary sleeves and you will at first be disappointed: no fine turns of phrase, no clever adjectives that leap off the page, no arresting psychological insights. Instead, what you are looking at is a kind of narrative perfection: a perfect interplay between dialogue and description, perfect characterization and perfect timing.”

As brief and plot focused as these stories might be when read individually the cumulative effect of reading The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes reveals a more well rounded Holmes. Doyle noted that often stories in magazines of his time were islands unto themselves. Calling them “disconnected stories” he suggested that “a single character running through a series, if it only engaged the attention of the reader, would bind that reader to that particular magazine.” This certainly proved true of Sherlock Holmes and “The Strand Magazine.” In his article “The Story of the Strand” Chris Willis notes that “the combination of Sherlock Holmes and the Strand had made Conan Doyle one of the most popular authors of the age. Fifty-six Holmes stories appeared in the magazine from 1891 to 1927, many of them illustrated by Sidney Paget’s now famous drawings.” Sprinkled throughout the cases a complex and intriguing sense of who Holmes character emerges. These traits are often overshadowed by his intellect and deductive powers when reading a single Sherlock Holmes short story. He is not just brilliant and logical but also bizarre, playful, lazy, compassionate and eccentric. Frederick Dorr Steele says of Holmes “Beginning as a self-disciplined thinking machine who rigidly excluded from his mind all information not pertinent to the case at hand, knowing or caring nothing for the arts, Holmes developed within a few years into veritable encyclopedia of such knowledge.”

What makes The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes distinct from the other collections in terms of plot is the introduction of the villainous mastermind Dr. Moriarty. Moriarty appears to be Holmes intellectual match. But where Holmes uses his mind to see justice served Moriarty runs a syndicate of thieves throughout London. He chases Holmes to the edge of Reichenbach Falls in the dramatic conclusion of the memoirs “The Final Problem.”

Guy Ritchie’s sequel to the 2009 Sherlock Holmes is in theatre’s December 16^th and is inspired by this collection of stories. The sequel will again feature Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law and Rachel McAdams from the last film. Joining the cast are Stephen Fry as Holmes brother Mycroft, Noomi Rapace from the Stieg Larson trilogy and Jared Harris from Mad Men.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through NetGalley.com. <http://www.netgalley.com> I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Exploring the ambiguities of mystery and murder

The Best American Mystery Stories of 2011
Edited by Harlan Coben
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The word mystery and perhaps all genre names, while at times helpful guideposts on the literary landscape, are loaded words. This collection of recent American mystery short stories explores the ambiguities of the mystery genre as it has each year since 1997. The collection contains stories of detectives, arsonists, spies, kidnappers, and assassins which span enough time to reflect the America that was as well as the America that is.

One thing these stories have in common is their brevity and potency. The collection’s editor Harlan Coben says in the introduction “The best short stories, like those high octane lovers, never fully leave you. They burn, linger, haunt. Some sneak up on you in a subtle way. Others are like a punch in the gut-sudden, spontaneous. They knock the wind out of you.”

Harlan Coben is no stranger to the mystery story having written 20 crime novels himself. In this short story collection there is a subtle thematic thread that ties these stories together. Harlan Coben plays the curator of this dark gallery of narratives, placing stories in balanced relation to one another. The more comical or emotionally calculated stories help balance out the visceral and gritty tales in the collection. And as the genre is explored with each successive tale so are the motley human emotions of fear, bitterness, resentment, and anger. Of course the act of murder is explored as well. Does assisted suicide become murder ? If so, when? These sorts of involved and fascinating questions are the turbulent undercurrent of The Best American Mystery Stories from 2011.

The stories are full of broken, angry, hurt people sketched with human complexity such that nobility at times shines forth from the seemingly darkest of hearts and at others the true darkness of characters’ souls will make you shudder. I found some of the content in the stories too titillating, vulgar or horrifying at times to be sure, but I also gained a greater appreciation for the intricate mystery of the human heart as well.

Some of the standout stories in the collection for me were:

Who Stole My Monkey? by David Corbett and Luis Alberto Urrea
The Hitter by Chris F. Holm
Baby Killer by Richard Lange

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through NetGalley.com. <http://www.netgalley.com> I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Lost in the snow available for free download

Over the past 2 years I’ve been writing a fiction book. I’ve decided to call it “Lost in the snow.” I started out adapting “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, a German silent film made in 1920,  into words. Since the film is silent, there was ample room for me to put it into words. It also told me what to do next, which was nice as I am still sort of a beginner or “noob” at this. But I don’t really care much for horror except for the fact that it doesn’t gloss over the difficulties of living and dying. Life can be quite horrific at times. Gradually it became something else. It became a story about dealing with the sudden death of a close friend. Hopefully it’s not too much of a downer and worth a read. I am making the book available in mobi file formats for Kindle e-readers and also epub file format for other e-readers. If you’d like to read it, go to my website and download it.

*Those without an ereader device can still read the book. Amazon has created a series of free Kindle reader app’s for Windows based PC’s, Mac computers and various smartphone’s. You can get them here.

Book Review: Story Engineering

Larry Brooks, author of six psychological thriller novels, has in “Story Engineering” collected the commonalities that exist in all stories whether they are a movie or a book and presented them as 6 core competencies: Concept, Character, Theme, Story Structure, and Scene. He’s convinced that many popular authors and writing books don’t own up to a certain accepted story structure that appears in the majority of novels across genres. Instead, they project a mystical and mysterious image of the writing process. This book sets out to demystify the writing process a little and put in practical terms what every good story needs.

Larry Brooks acknowledges that story planning and outlining aren’t the way everyone writes. Some will choose different more organic methods, but he claims that in all cases an understanding of story structure is needed.

He references “The Da Vinci Code” heavily throughout the book. I had a pretty high cringe factor at this. I felt tension, which I often do, between my evangelical religious beliefs and the value I also place on how well a story is told. In my opinion “The Da Vinci Code” is a bad story that is told in a really engaging and compelling manner.  Thankfully “Story Engineering” is not pointing out anything other than that; the engaging and compelling manner in which Dan Brown structured “The Da Vinci Code.”

I found the emphasis on planning in “Story Engineering” to be refreshing after spending much of my writing time wandering from one blank page to the next hoping to discover the next thing to write in my story as I wrote it. “Pantsing” your way through writing a story as Larry calls it hasn’t worked out too well for me up to the present and this is because I didn’t know the key scenes every story needs and where to put them in relation to one another.

This book doesn’t put on airs. It will be easily understandable to anyone, even if they, like me, don’t have any creative writing education to work from. Those with an English degree or an MFA might have a hard time taking pointers from mass market paperback authors and prime time television shows, but I found it to be quite helpful for learning about story structure. One criticism I do have of the book is its exclusion of some of the classics. There is no reference to the works of Jane Austen, Dostoyevsky, and Tolkien. There are quite a number of film adaptations of their novels which clearly show that whatever way these authors go about writing their stories it seems to be both successful captivating the imaginations of their readers as well as the attention of their film and television audiences.

If you are looking for an understanding, sympathetic and motivational voice to get your pen moving and help you overcome the writers’ block, you will be disappointed by “Story Engineering.” For that I recommend “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott. But if you want to find out what essential events need to be in your next story and where they go in relation to one another then “Story Engineering” is a good choice.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Cliches

I’ve been looking at cliches lately. Most agree that a cliche is basically a worn out idea that because of its constant use has lost its meaning. Maybe it’s similar to how I feel about the ocean. It’s neat but sort of “the usual.” I grew up with it only a 20 minute drive away. To some however the ocean is far more exotic and seemingly more full of meaning. The blog “How to Slay a Cliche” sets out to rewrite some common cliches. As this blogger who simply goes by Wordsworth puts it “Rewrite or recast them and their essence becomes useful again.” Reading his blog inspired me to do just that. I selected a couple examples of cliches from one of the creative writing books I had which addressed the issue and went to work on them.

“Bone chilling cold” became:

• goose pimpling cold
• teeth chattering cold
• muscle tensing cold
• joint stiffening cold

“…sleeping like the dead” becomes:

• sleeping like the housecat
• sleeping like the surface of the placid lake
• sleeping like a house with the shades drawn
• sleeping like a flag; inhaling and exhaling the gentle pulsing breeze

“…feet planted firmly on the ground”  becomes:

• footing like a tower
• feet rooted firmly in the earth
• foot planted like an ancient stone
• feet buried in the sand like a bulkhead

After I had gotten the creative juices flowing I realized that I had used nautical imagery quite a bit. I grew up near the water which probably played a little factor in the way I write. I can see, and hear and smell the ocean just by closing my eyes cause its drenched my memory so thoroughly. Anyways I thought I wonder if there’s a story here? There was.

“On the morning after the storm the town slept like the lone tattered flag; inhaling and exhaling the gentle pulsing breeze as it hung on the flagpole. The coastline was a joint stiffening kind of cold in January, but the man stood on the beach. Fear gripped him; his feet buried in the sand like a bulkhead. he blamed himself. The perfect life he’d constructed for himself had collapsed; destroyed by the very thing that drew him there: the sea.”

As pleased as I was with the descriptive imagery of this scene and the way the setting worked as an antagonist to the mans desire to live by the sea I couldn’t help but think what a downer. This story isn’t factual. Its fiction. And I can have it end however I like. I’ve read that “the great promise of fiction is that it will tell a lie so marvelous it will contain more truth than what is factual.” One of the most profound truths to me is the reality of grace and forgiveness expressed in the biblical parable of the prodigal son. So couldn’t this man be in a similar moment of failure and revelation that the prodigal son experienced. Couldn’t he have his house pulled out to sea along with everything else he owned only to have him realize that the loving father who freely gave him his inheritance he used to build that house will meet him with a compassionate embrace, give him a fine robe, put a ring on his finger, feast and celebrate when he returns home.

Here is the story with the prodigal elements included.

On the morning after the storm the town slept like the lone tattered flag; inhaling and exhaling the gentle pulsing breeze as it hung on the flagpole. The coastline was a joint stiffening kind of cold in January, but the young man stood on the beach. Fear gripped him; his feet buried in the sand like a bulkhead. he blamed himself. The home he’d constructed for himself had collapsed; destroyed by the very thing that drew him there: the sea.

The father was tense in his chair watching the news reports. He’d given up trying to reach him by phone. The old man’s imagination was beginning to side with despair thinking about what might have happened to his son. The doorbell rang and he stood to his feet and walked to the door. He signed for the package and brought it inside. He slowly cut through the packaging tape with his keys and opened the box. The man’s shaky hands grabbed one of the books and he turned it over in his hands. His fingers ran over the raised letters of his name on the cover. Clinching his teeth he threw the book across the room. It hit one of the dining room chairs and flopped to the ground. The old man held his face in his hands and he began to cry. The young man quietly opened the door and walked tentatively into the house.

“Hey pop.”

The man looked up, the tears in his eyes turning from sorrow to joy as they flowed, stood to his feet and embraced his son.

The Journaling Life

Journaling is an important part of my life that I hope to continue to until I die. In art school this was really the backbone of my education. In nearly every class our work flowed out of our journals. My life and my journals intertwine so much that when I left mine at my fiancee’s parents’ house in Fredericksburg a couple weeks back I felt incomplete. I felt disembodied and at the same time bursting at the seams.

I think journaling can be a really valuable part of Christian devotional life. In art school I wasn’t shown how to connect my devotional life with my journaling. This is fine. VCU never set out to do this. They set out to teach me about visual communication and did. Instead the Lord has taught me devotional journaling, slowly over time. My journals show marked shifts from one time period to another if you were to read through them. Some are more organized than others. After finishing college I learned to lay my thoughts and feelings bare on the page without expectation of sounding eloquent, pious or profound. After my friend passed away from cancer at the young age of 29 I needed a place to vent. I became enamored with the book The Artist’s Way around this time. It is a book which aims to link spirituality and creativity. The author Julia Cameron feels they are inseparable really. I tend to agree. Still, her definition of “spirituality” I later realized was much broader than my evangelical Christian definition of it. More and more I began to experience that being free to express myself honestly is liberating. But if I am to remain true to my faith I can’t simply write whatever I feel and expect my writing to be devotional; nor can I expect it to deepen my relationship with Jesus.

So, I began reading through the Bible and responding to it each day filling three pages. Since then I have also begun incorporating weekly debriefs and monthly debriefs where I read through past entries looking for common threads, themes, and perhaps key verses to keep in mind. I picked up this idea of weekly reflection or debriefing while going through a devotional for dating couples with my girlfriend in the earlier part of our relationship. Reading through books together and discussing them has really been good for us. While reading the devotional for dating couples I thought, “What a great way to consistently review journal entries and keep thoughts and insights fresh.”

My future mother-in-law gave me a new journal for Christmas and I’ve been journaling in it since the new year as I read through a Karen Kingsbury 52 week devotional called Miracles. I have continued to reflect back on entries weekly and monthly. There is nothing miraculous about the structure or the writing. But it is a record of a life lived in Christ and a life lived in relationship with Him is a miracle. Journaling is an intentional documentation of that miracle as outwardly I will waste away but inwardly I am renewed daily.

I hope that I’ve inspired you to begin or continue to journal your walk with God no matter how close you feel to Him. If you do, make responding to scripture and reflection on prior entries a habit. Even if you are the only one who ever reads it, the experience will deepen your sense of who you are and your relationship with Christ. That will eventually touch others by the way that you live. Who knows, you may pen something that touches the hearts of others profoundly as well.