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My Journal
I journal…a lot. In fact I am almost done with my eighteenth journal. This made me really excited when some of my homework for Interpreting I was to write a journal. We were to journal on our favorite quote. I love this quote so I just decided to share my journal with you.
“I have to admit, it was really hard for me to determine which quote or verse to write about because I absolutely love things like this. I’m the type of person that can sit down with a book of quotes and read through its entirety in one sitting. When trying to decide which quote to write about I opened up the latest journal that I finished, the seventeenth to be precise [I wrote this was back in September when I did only have 17 journals], and found several quotes and verses that had stood out to me over the past year. They were all very good, but this quote by J.I. Packer in the book Knowing God struck me so deeply:
‘There is unspeakable comfort—the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates—in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.’
“I’ve always known that God loves me, but there is always something in the back of my mind that makes me question whether I’ll ever do something bad enough that God won’t love me anymore. I know, I really do, that there is nothing that God can’t or won’t forgive, but still worries creep in. Yes, I am a recovering worrier and perfectionist. This quote helps me to remember that God is outside of time. When he forgave my sins he already knew the worst that I would do and chose to forgive me anyway. There is nothing that I can do that would be bad enough for Him to stop loving or forgiving me because he has already seen the worst and He loves me and blesses me through and in spite of it.
“I live in Shupe as an RA roommate, “Shupe Older Sister,” and Block Mentor and attend Shupe Group, a Bible study, on Thursday nights. The Shupe Group that my roommate leads is based on redemption. Redemption is what it’s all about. Because God knows the worst that you can and will do, he is fully ready to give you a second chance. He sees you in your times of struggle and is constantly eager to pull you back into His arms. There will always be room enough for you and your story of redemption.”
Bethel, thank you for giving me the opportunity to be reminded of your amazing love and forgiveness.
