Can I be honest? Sometimes my everyday life does not feel sacred. Sometimes the music of my life sounds more like noise than song. Existence is exhausting. It feels routine in the most uninspired way. Drained of joy and beauty. Life feels like hard work that is never-ever-ever-ever going to get done. It feels scary. Like a run-on question with no mark at the end. And not anything like the picture in my head when I was young and full of wonder and signing binding contracts on my future.

There, I said it.

The fact that my husband and I are raising a family of seven children in this increasingly angry, turbulent society, making a modest living in the middle of a shut-down-the-world-pandemic would be laughable if it wasn’t so terrifying.

But the truth of the matter is this: I wake up every day and choose how I want to look at my life. This is a power that is given to me. And I’m not going to lie… Sometimes, the choice is hard. It is easy to get sucked into a life of worry and anxiety over the future. It is easy to want to run and hide from the responsibility I’ve gotten myself into. To want to temporarily hand my life over to someone who is more qualified than I am to meet the needs of all people who count on me to survive. It is easy to drown in the ocean of needs that hit and beat and break, wave after wave, low-tide, high-tide, day and night, night and day and wonder how we will ever rise to the surface. The strong, silent current that sweeps up every hope and pulls it under. I have been in this place. And there is no way to breathe when you are living in those waters.

It is just as easy to go through the motions of your life while in your heart you are questioning every decision you ever made that got you here. You sit and stare in the mirror of the past, wondering if the image before you is the best that could have come from your life. And you lose yourself there, becoming nothing more than your own shadowy reflection. A thing that no one can touch or feel or hold close.

God, I don’t want to live like that.

Every day these choices are offered to me. Live in fear. Live in regret.

I refuse. I refuse. I refuse.

Because I know that, no matter how I may feel, my life really is sacred. That is the truth. My life is a gift. It has meaning and purpose and a holy weight to it because I was created in the image of God for his glory. And even when it feels hard and confusing and overwhelming and the future is one huge question that I cannot answer, it is ok. Because I have the power to make a choice. I can live in fear or regret, or I can choose to walk a bridge to peace.

I walk that bridge through prayer, reflection, and creative process. And all of this takes place on the pages of my journal. Journaling is the way I think, feel, process, and understand my life. When I move my hand across the blank page, my thoughts become words, my words become ink, and that ink reveals to me what is in my heart. It shows me my thoughts with stark clarity. I can see them for what they are. I can take them captive. I can lean into them or let them go. I can send them up as a prayer. I can move beyond the shadows and begin to live in a way that connects me to the true purpose and meaning for which I was created. I can see the beauty around me for what it is. Each season with its own exquisite joys. Each day its own grand symphony, never to be replayed, but to be enjoyed fully, completely, for one magnificent performance.

In my journal, I am able to sift through the noise and hear the melody line of my one and only life. And it is here, in words scrawled by my own humble hand, God teaches me to embrace my song and sing it with surrender.

I would love to show you easy it is to use the simple, transformative process of journaling to connect with the deeper meaning behind your life through my online course, Innermost Journaling: Mining the Depths of You Sacred Everyday Life. All you need is 10 minutes a day and a desire to wake up to the beauty that is all around you. It is really that easy. Click below to learn more.