Freedom in Your Writing
I might write: “In elementary school they told you it was wrong to write like you talk to your friends. In elementary school they told you it was wrong to talk like you think. You had to choose your words ever more carefully as you progressed in your learning. In high school and college they told you it was wrong to use non-specific words. ‘They’, ‘was’, ‘it’, ‘told’, and ‘like’. All of those words are non-specific.
Instead the above might be rewritten as the following in a blog post: “Your teachers taught you to avoid writing in your speaking tone. They forced you to communicate more clearly. Your teachers encouraged you to think before you speak. So you filtered your thoughts before you spoke them. And your instructors taught you to avoid non-specific words such as: ‘they’, ‘was’, ‘it’, ‘told’, and ’like’. You said what you meant.”
But in journaling you write for your own benefit. You can pour your uncensored thoughts out on paper without fear of being appraised for credit. In other words, “You can write the way you think.”
If you want to go back and “pretty it up” later, you can. The rereading of your journal entries, even days later, can be confusing. When you first “write the way you think”, your journal entry may seem clear to you. But a lot can happen between the time you write in your journal and the time you reread what you have written, if you even reread it at all. So if the journal entry is particularly meaningful or valuable to you, it might be a good idea to rework it.
Again, your journal entry belongs to you. It is most likely intended to please only you. You can allow others to read it, if you would like, sure. But, as with America’s governing principles, your journal entry is of you, by you, and for you. It’s yours. Nobody else’s guidelines matter.
A journal also can be God’s gift to you. In fact, in a journal, you can write to God. You can pray to God, no matter how you believe in Him, (or ‘Her’, if you have trouble with Him being a Him for some reason). You can challenge God, though perhaps you should do it earnestly, from the depths of your heart.
You can even ask God questions. I’m no Pastor. But I do know you can ask questions.
Who am I to say how or whether God will answer? Actually, I do know the very often quoted verse about God loving the world so much and sending his Son (and therefore a part of God himself, Christians believe) to die for everybody. And since I know it caused God great pain to have Jesus die for the world, I know God loves all of us. This is a reason I believe you can ask God questions.
And, again, whether or how God will answer, who can say? I can’t guarantee a thing but it sure doesn’t hurt to ask. I like to think he answers. I believe he answers. But I’m no Pastor. All I am is a Christian. You may be something completely different yourself.
Regardless of whether you are a Christian, you probably understand me to say I figure God loves everybody so anybody can ask any question of God in a journal.
Also you can ask God for forgiveness.
That forgiveness from God with regard to Jesus gives eternal life is something I believe. But that is because I am a Christian. (Here, I use “with regard to” to mean “In the Name of”, as they say.)
Forgiveness from God without regard to Jesus I can’t speak for. Again, I’m only a Christian. But I figure you can ask forgiveness of God, yourself, and others in your journal. It’s your journal.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, stops you from doing anything with regard to God whether you believe in Jesus or not. I say this as a Christian who journals and realizes everyone in the world has both the freedom and the right to put pen to paper and address God as intimately as they have need or desire to do.
That I believe Jesus is in there when you write to God is my own private joke. But my joke is not at anyone’s expense. Rather it is just because I’m mischievous. I hope you think it is funny, too.
But seriously, if Jesus is God what if he hears you? Does the very possibility of Jesus overhearing you prevent you from journaling to God? I wouldn’t know why. “My” Christian God isn’t “stronger” than “your” God. I just happen to believe the Christian God is God. You can believe something different if you want.
You, (or I), can confess even the most heinous of sins to God in your journal, even if you don’t want to spell the offenses out. It doesn’t matter what others think of these sins, whether they consider them to be large or small. Whatever your sins are, even if they are so bad you can’t even admit them to yourself, God knows your heart, and you can write what you do know. It’s amazing the comfort having such a confidante can bring.
Confession is good for the soul no matter who you confess to in your journal, though except for God and yourself, I personally consider confession to all others to be mainly theoretical.
In a journal, you can write to a friend, an enemy, an animal, even a car. The possibilities are endless.
Whether you believe your journal is a gift from God or not, it’s yours. So if you want to write in a journal, write with abandon. Have no qualms.
Freedom is the opportunity you have as you hold your journal in your hands. Freedom can be the goal as you begin to write yourself into that journal.
At least, this is my simple, rather opinionated conclusion. Some folks live in circumstances which might require invisible ink or maximum security for their journal and journaling process to be their own. How about you? Do you feel like you have the freedom to write with abandon in a journal?
What About Writing? 