Recently, I purchased a beautiful journal from an amazing company called Trades of Hope (Trades of Hope is a company devoted to empowering women out of poverty using the home party model. To find out more about it, click the link above)! When my journal finally arrived, I realized how ornate it was and I actually thought that it seemed too pretty to write in! Eventually, I decided to make it a daily journal. I wanted it to be something relaxed and not very formal. I just wanted to jot down little thoughts or questions I had during the day about life or God or anything at all really. It was just going to be a way of releasing my mind, but it has become so much more than that in the last month...
Something I realized as I started writing was that I have many more questions than I do just random thoughts. My innermost doubts and fears surround things like, "Am I going to be safe?" or "Does God love me even when it feels like no one else does?" I've found such freedom in letting my fears and worries come out of my head and down onto paper. It's like I can examine each thought and process it more fully and the best part is that I can pray over it and open my Bible to look for answers to my questions.
The Bible talks about bringing our thoughts into captivity (2 Corinthians 10) and for so much of my life I've let my thoughts run wild. I've battled anxiety for a good portion of my life and I've been known to speak my mind a little "too" freely sometimes. Every day I am working on it and I'm growing and maturing and changing, but I don't think I've spent enough time meditating on this idea. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says,
"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
Something I've learned from writing down these questions is that at the end of the day, the biggest enemy I have in the world is often myself. The biggest arguments I'm having are ones that are stirring in my soul. My doubts and fears are so often contrary to the knowledge of God. If I fail to take those thoughts captive, I'm binding myself to fear and finding no freedom from it. I'm falling prey to the desires of the world and the hopelessness of the world. Instead of taking my thoughts captive, I'm being held captive by my thoughts...
If you're struggling with wild thoughts like I have been, take time to write them down. Get them out of your head so you can release them from your mind and take your thoughts to God so he can give you peace.
I'll be praying for anyone who reads this today.
--Kayla
