When Old Journals Remind You of God’s Faithfulness

Earlier this week, while unpacking a box of books in our new home, I came across a stack of my old journals. They were tucked between commentaries and paperbacks, their covers a little worn, their pages bent at the corners. I hadn’t seen them in years. For a moment I just held them, hesitating, before I sat down on the floor and cracked one open.

What I saw put a hook in my chest—pulling me in.

There they were: words from a younger version of myself. Prayers scrawled quickly in uneven handwriting. Sentences scribbled in the margins of busy days. Three, maybe four lines that captured a heart weighed down with longing, fear, or hope.

Reading them was like stepping back into the rooms of my old self. I could feel the heaviness of those requests all over again—the uncertainty, the aching questions, the wondering if God saw me and if He cared.

But now, with years between the ink and the present moment, I could also see what I could not then. I saw answers. Some were so abundant I had forgotten how impossible they once seemed. Others were quiet, almost hidden, and I wouldn’t have remembered them apart from these pages. Still others were answered differently than I had asked, but I could see the thread of God’s wisdom running right through them.

It was sobering to realize how many of those desperate requests I had entirely forgotten. At the time, they consumed my thoughts; today, I wouldn’t even recall them without the record in front of me. What once felt like mountains had, in time, crumbled into testimonies of God’s provision.

Page after page, the journals became something more than notebooks. They were monuments. Stones of remembrance in ink and paper. They were telling me again the story of God’s faithfulness—reminding me that He was present in every fear, every waiting season, every whispered prayer.

As I closed the covers, I couldn’t help but think of the prayers I am carrying now. They feel heavy. Some of them seem impossible. But one day, I may sit with these present journals in my lap and see what I cannot see today: that God was here too. That His hand was guiding. That His faithfulness was steady, even when I could not imagine the way forward.

That is the gift of finding those journals this week. They invite me to look back with gratitude and forward with trust. The story is still being written, but the Author has proven Himself faithful on every page so far.

And because of that, I can hand Him the pen again today.