Some people keep written diaries of their daily activities. It’s a way to sort out their thoughts, think about where they are in life and find outlet for their feelings that remains private, yet meaningful to them.
After one woman told me about reading over her diary and finding a lot of anguish in her notes, I realized that diaries don’t have to be written down. They come in mental form too. The human mind stores up memories, shelves them away in the background of thought, carries them around, and holds them as true.
This could be good or bad depending upon what is stored in those diaries!
What’s in your mental diary? Are the notes you take a record of error or Truth?
Christian Science explains that the best way to look at life is from God’s point of view. Life is spiritual. Life is good. Life is God lived and expressed. Anything less is not life, but a version of mortal error that is to be grown out of and replaced with the spiritual ideal of Life found in Christ.
The mortal is temporal error. The spiritual is eternal Truth.
So, what record are you archiving in your mental diary? Are you recording the good and the true, or holding onto error from the past that needs to be released? Are you writing a mental journal of anguish and sorrow, defeat and despair, disease and suffering, or letting your thoughts mirror the divine where gratitude, joy, health, wisdom, and spiritual peace abound! It’s your choice. You are the one that writes your journal. No one else can make a single mark in it.
In the Big Picture of Life eternal, God is the only hand that writes in your journal, and it’s all a record of good. Now that’s a diary I would enjoy reading!
Thanks, Evan. I love this… and it helps me stay on track when thinking or writing down thoughts about experiences of the day.
It reminded me of an idea that sang to me one morning recently:
“God’s grace, God’s glory
Unfolds my story!”
Nice to know who the only real Author is!
I keep a diary and have done so for the past year tracking my time in 15 minute intervals. It has helped me see where I spend my time and organize my priorities. But I hadn’t thought of it in either a good or bad sense, but as an aid for decision making to help guide me to where I wanted to spend my time most going forward in life. This article is very important in that we need to recognize the obscure impact that our thought can have on this sort of tracking, For me it all good with a good intent and a good outcome, but I can see where if not used properly such a process could lead one to do things not under God’s kingdom but just because they listed and we unthinkingly act just to get things done. Thank you for this reminder that what we do is important when done in celebration of God’s blessing as opposed to living a life driven by misperception and unnecessary priorities.
I try to make my “journal” a ”fruitage chapter” where I record both the challenges I face,
AND the treatments ‘truths’ that brought healing. It is more like a natural scientist documents experiments and discoveries. It is something of a ”travel log” of places & impressions, & lesson learned. Since I value my progress toward fuller spiritual understanding, my “journal” is a source of confidence and strategies that work.
But my ”journal” is not all in a bound volume. It is gathered together from letters to friends,
notes on Wednesday testimonies, “idea” sheets on fresh inspirations/applications from the Lesson and from articles. These notes & “Ahhhha !” sheets go into a fat file pouch.
What a joy and LIFT to open that pouch and spread them out on my bed and review all the
nifty insights and healing ideas that I can cherish to expand my repertoire of treatments.
So, I grow from remembering, innovating, celebrating both the trials and the treatments.
It becomes a collage of gratitude. Evidence of the divine design.
Thank you for the wonderful quote from Mrs. Eddy. This is a challenge in a world awash in fear and hatred.
As a child, I wanted so much to become a writer of stories which to this day I have my original copies. They tell about life as a 10 year old saw it to fantasy as to what happened when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden to Science Fiction how Martians became Earthlings. Now I submit my spiritual thoughts to websites such as SPIRITVIEW.
Today’s topic was very timely for me. Yesterday I went on a real pity party on myself which I have never really done to my recollection. I am usually very upbeat, happy and friendly but my new challenges got the best of me. I wrote my daughter an emotional email and discussed some other things aloud to a friend. It was as though the dam had burst. It had. Then I noticed an email from an old longtime precious friend who is a Scientist. He said he had tried to call me but would try again. Sure enough he had left me a voicemail and I giggled hearing his remarks. Shortly he called and we talked for over an hour. I shared with him my day of outrageous behavior. He kept telling me the wonderful things about me. I could feel a change in my thoughts. He was really giving me a treatment . I emailed him back after we had spoken to share with him the email I wrote back to my daughter and to thank him for the instantaneous healing I had had. Thinking back on my day I could see all sorts of love that God was pouring in to me. I always start with a gratitude journal when I sense anything is amiss . I started mentally doing it when I noticed how out of control I had gotten. I like to write it down as well. Today I don’t feel so out of touch because I know that God is right beside me and I can feel Love’s presence all around me.
Today’s message was right on point. I am grateful for God’s care, my friends and family and
for all the ways Christian Science has so many more outlets through songs, periodicals, blogs to help us reach our true selves. I picked up so many more ideas today and everyday that I read this blog. Thank you, Evan.
This message is SO on-target for each and everyone of us! Thank you Evan. Many thanks to the other responders who shared their helpful thoughts and ongoing and upward spiritual journeys. What a blessing. it’s another way to see “the dross consumed and the gold refined.” I’m very grateful.
Oh, what a great reminder about the diary we keep. Although I do not keep a written one, there is one I have been replaying mentally that needs to be erased. This wonderful article and above remarks remind me that just before one goes to sleep, it is not necessary to have a recapitulation of past wrongs, mistakes, regrets sliding through thought. This is a wakeup call for me to absolutely refuse to have any mental negative “written words”–but, to reach out to our loving God and WRITE HIM a love note—a note that includes how grateful I am, how thankful, how much I appreciate and love him–gratitude for past healings, for protection, for guidance. Thank you, dear Evan—and everyone.
For years I have kept a journal, and use it as a measure of personal progress, as well as a history of events. I am grateful that I have written down healings that have come about as a result of my prayers. I date them and record them as accurately as possible. When I happen to come across one in an old journal, it’s inspiring to recall it as it took place. Thank you for this Spirit View subject, and for all of them.
Thank you so much, Evan! This is so timely for me, too. I changed/added one little thing. Where you wrote “No one else can make a single mark in it,” I added, No one else can CAUSE a single mark in it.