Comments on: Open a Lifetime Gift: Can a Childhood Diary Change You?

By: Paula

Paula — Mon, 13 May 2024 14:07:20 +0000

Lisa, I love this! What a tenderhearted post. I didn’t keep a diary as a youngster but I did go through several journals through highschool and young adulthood.
Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful article with Sweet Tea & Friends this month dear friend.

By: Aritha

Aritha — Sun, 12 May 2024 17:46:22 +0000

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How fun and special to read, Lisa. I was a diary girl myself. Currently, I’m writing my memoir about my childhood in an orthodox Christian church community, and a lot of it comes from the memories in my diary. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I laugh. I love that you were also a diary girl.

Lots of Love,
Aritha

By: Aritha

Aritha — Sun, 12 May 2024 17:45:44 +0000

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By: Steph@Crazylittlelovebirds

Steph@Crazylittlelovebirds — Sun, 28 Apr 2024 02:42:09 +0000

Keeping a diary is a wonderful thing. It allows you to reflect on your life and see how far you have come. I kept three diaries, one during my teenage years and the other two during my pregnancies with my daughters. These two diaries are incredibly special to me, and I plan on gifting them to my daughters when they are older. I hope that when they read my words, they will know just how much they were loved, even before they were born. Lisa, thank you for sharing this post at The Crazy Little Lovebirds link party #35.

By: Jean Wise

Jean Wise — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 14:23:11 +0000

so cool you have your childhood diary. wish I still had mine. I do have one I started when pregnant with my first child, only a few entries but so insightful to read and listen once again to that young women. Three kids later is when I started the regular practice of journal writing = a wonderful practice.

By: Lynn D. Morrissey

Lynn D. Morrissey — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 17:06:18 +0000

Oh I see it now. Once I posted today’s short sentence, suddenly the other appeared. Who knows?! Not I for sure! 🙂

By: Lynn D. Morrissey

Lynn D. Morrissey — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 17:05:07 +0000

Really weird, Lisa. Still can’t see my original comment, but I’m glad you can! 🙂

By: Lynn

Lynn — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 17:45:07 +0000

Sweet memories! I remember my first diary in mid-grade school, and I did write in it almost daily. Many moves later, I don’t have it anymore, but I still see the blue lines and neat, tiny printing. Writing shapes us, even when we don’t keep what we wrote, I believe!

By: Lynn D. Morrissey

Lynn D. Morrissey — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 16:38:26 +0000

Love this, Lisa. Yes! I had a small, red, one-year diary with lock and key, given to me by my journal-keeping mother one Christmas. I have it *somewhere*. I don’t think I filled it out very far, but I know it affected me. In high school, my journaling was really letter-writing to girlfriends where we’d express our angst, dreams, boys, boys, boys (all that intrigue), and other thoughts. These were not just little notes you’d pass behind teachers’ backs (though we did that too), but heart-to-heart teenage sharing. You’d think we never talked between classes or on the phone and would have long since run out of things to say! Not! But your post prompts me to remember them and how that really *was* our mutual journal-keeping (and as an aside, it’s fun to pass a diary among friends, and you respond to the person who wrote before you). But during a crisis situation at work when I was in my early thirties, I journaled in earnest. I’d unbosom my soul on lined pages in my Dayrunner at lunch away from the office, and before I knew it, I was addressing my angst to God Himself. It was the beginning of what I came to call my “love letters to God” (also the name of the book I wrote about prayer-journaling). I have journals, (8 1/2 x 11) artist sketch books, that literally tower over my 5’4 frame when stacked, like the leaning tower of journals! After vertigo (constantly, almost 4 years now), I have really neglected journaling b/c it causes me to be even dizzier, looking down to write. But I will tell you that I am suffering spiritually because of it. I just have to do it, dizzy or not! Thank you for your inspiration. It’s a transformational journey to record one’s life. This is my personal quote: “A life worth living is worth recording” (by Lynn D. Morrissey). I think that that is really true, and the benefits of journaling are endless. you should write a post on that!

Love you and all you write!
xo
Lynn

By: Barbara Harper

Barbara Harper — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 13:37:00 +0000

I don’t remember having a specific diary growing up. But in high school I journaled in spiral notebooks. I threw them away (I remember writing about boys a lot, too. 🙂 ) I’m sorry I did now: it would be interesting to look at what I thought back then. That was also the year or two before my parents divorced, so I imagine I did a lot of processing.

On the other hand, reading Elisabeth Elliot’s biographies published in the last few years, I’ve thought maybe it’s a good thing my old journals are long gone. 🙂 Not that I will ever reach EE’s status or have to worry about people publishing my journals. But I doubt she wanted to have reprinted for all the world to see who she had a crush on in high school and what she argued with her mother about. It was an encouragement to see she was “normal” teen, that it took decades to grow into the wisdom she had as an older woman, and that’s probably what the author meant in including her early journal entries. Still–maybe she should have marked for her family which parts were meant to be kept private.