I am an extremely forgetful person with lots of things. When it comes to recalling random unimportant details, I'm your girl. Even though I might remember exactly where I was when I found out that Santa Clause wasn't real, I cannot remember how old I was when I learned to ride a bike.

My senior year, I started journaling. By journaling, I mean that I started writing down my thoughts, prayers, to-do lists, and ideas all in a notebook. At the time, I had no idea that I would begin to fill notebooks with my own words!

There is something about writing things down. For me, it helps lighten my load and get things off my chest. I can almost feel the weight of my worry being lifted as I write. Writing also helps me guide and focus my prayer times. I don't always write down my prayers, and I go through spells where I don't write much at all.

I always end up coming back to my notebooks. They hold pieces of who I am! I enjoy going back through them. Skimming over those pages helps me see how far I have come, and things that I still need to work on. Rereading past prayers especially helps me to see how God has worked in my life, and how He answers my prayers. The answer I am given may not be what I wanted, but God always answers prayers.

These pages are filled with words from my heart. They house secrets, joys, pains, and worries. They were there when I needed to vent in silence. They were there when I needed to doodle. They were there when I needed to get thoughts out of my head and onto a visible plane so that I could sort them out.

Years from now, maybe I will be able to reread these notebooks. Maybe I will be able to remember what it was like to be a young college student, with plenty of dreams and aspirations. Hopefully by then I will have been able to realize many of those dreams, God willing!

Maybe it won't be me reading them. Maybe it will be my children, or even my grandchildren. Maybe my stories and thoughts and struggles will help them in their times of struggle, and help them understand more about me. Just maybe.