In the spirit of new things...

I'm going to buy a new journal today. Or pull a blank one that's sitting empty on my shelf out, and doctor it until the cover isn't just plain black (I need some color and life) and start writing in that one.

I've been thinking about this all week. Trying to decide what I was going to do about the journal situation.

I started one at the beginning of December. A lovely blue one that fit all my general specifications for the "perfect journal". I kind of have a thing about totally filling one journal before I start a new one. But here's the deal. The advent and months following that are in the blue one have filled less than a third of the journal. But they were really hard, and the things contained in the journal are also hard, and every time I stop and think "I should journal that" I realize that it's just too hard to open the book and start writing there.

So the part of me that says I just can't waste two thirds of a "perfect journal" is rebelling.

But the part of me that needs new things, that needs color and joy and life needs someplace to process the things I'm thinking about these days. The questions I'm wrestling with. The scriptures I'm caught by. And I need that place to not be one that is totally marked by the incredibly painful things of the last five months.

So, in the spirit of new things, I'm going to set the old journal aside, and buy or decorate a new one.

I'm also going to wash the sheets on my bed, and deep clean some parts of my space. And I'm going for my first facial ever today.

New things.

Needing to choose joy, and life and hope and peace.