Just What is a Journal Anyway? - Updated and Recycled

This was originally posted 4/10/2012, but since we aren't doing our regular "Friday Foto Friends" today, I thought this would be a good time to revisit this particular "journal entry".

Original Post:

What is a journal anyway?  Several of us online blogging friends have started sharing random excerpts from our journals here on our blogs.  I am really excited about this adventure because not only has it caused me to go digging for those "gems" in my musty old journals, but I am also getting a glimpse of what others have written throughout their lives that have had meaning for them...and now for us as well. It is interesting to see how God has worked in each of our lives in similar ways...as applicable to our unique situations...but the underlying words of hope and encouragement are there for each of us.  God has spoken to us through His Word, the Bible, and through the people He has placed within our paths.  Some messages were spoken to us from personal friends, other thoughts were shared through quotations from books, letters from loved ones or friends, or through dreams and visions of what we hoped to become or do with our lives.

My First Real Journal was a "Bookshelf Scrapbook and Album"...a hardbound blank book with over 200 pages,

in which I hand -wrote every page over a span of five years...I've pictured it here on my
bed in my room, because that is where I usually
sat to write...normally in the evenings when everyone was settling down for the night and
I had a few minutes to myself to steal away quietly and write before I had to get to bed myself.

I was showing off a homemade apple pie to my youngest
son Scott, standing in front of the Hoosier Cupboard that
I had just restored. (Which belonged to my husband's Grandmother).
 This was one of those special moments in
my life that I wanted to record.

The picture above is of my first real journal..a blank book that I found somewhere and decided to start writing in it.  Over five years I wrote about personal dreams, daily journaling of life events, prayer requests and answers to prayers.  I included a description of some of my favorite things in my home...antique furnishings that came from loved ones...even added some pictures...(kind of like this blog...)

I wrote about our holiday visits home with our loved ones.  During these years we were living far away from family and the opportunities to go home for Christmas or Thanksgiving were few...so therefore very precious times together.

Sometimes I even got artistic and included drawings...this one was
entitled "Home for the Holidays"...no I'm not THAT old...we didn't
travel by stagecoach.  But I kind of liked that era and often wished
I could go back in time and live in such a place...

During these years we were serving the Lord in the ministry, and much of my journaling revolved around our church family, responsibilities, and the call to new places.  I also enclosed mementos of special events, such as when my husband finally finished his years of study and received his Doctorate...a dream come true after many years of hard work (for both of us!)   We had a lot of high hopes built around that achievement, and much of my writing recorded the rise and fall of those hopes as we didn't always attain the goals we had set for ourselves, but we saw how God had other plans for us that were, at least in His sight, even greater. It wasn't always easy for us to see that or accept it. Often it was a bitter pill to swallow when we had to acknowledge what God said in Isaiah 55:8-9 as being true for us:

"'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord.  'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.'" 

My Grandma Tedlie, Flora Sheets Tedlie,
circa 1903-04, possibly around the time
that this poem was written. She
would have been just 19 or 20 yrs.
old when Little Florence passed
away.  Another note,
my Grandparent's first child,
Harry B. Tedlie, was brain-injured at
birth by a forceps delivery, causing him to
 suffer brain damage.  He lived with the family
 for about 10 years and then had to be
institutionalized since families just weren't
equipped to care for children with
such needs back then.
 "Little Harry"(as he was always known)
 was just a year older
than "Little Florence". 
No wonder my Grandmother looks
 a bit pensive and sad in this picture. 
She had a lot to deal with at such a young age.
 She did, however, have five more healthy
and beautiful children, including my mother,
Dorothea May Tedlie, who was the next to the last child!

Stuck throughout the pages of this journal are many precious memories, genealogies, thoughts that transcend time and space.  My mother once gave me a copy of a handwritten poem, written by her mother, my Grandma Tedlie, upon the very sorrowful occasion of the death of one of her precious babies.  Little Florence passed away at the tender age of about 1 year 3 mos.,* following a kind of flu bug that probably would not have affected a baby so severely today. (*I just learned that Florence Belle Tedlie was born on March 21, 1903, and died on July 6, 1904).  But that was over one hundred years ago now, and babies often lost their lives after such a quick illness.  This little poem, with a snippet of her hair attached to it, is heartrending.  It gives me an insight to the tenderness of my grandmother, whom I barely got to know..but look forward to meeting again someday in heaven..along with Little Florence, "with a face like a tinted pearl."

This is what is says:

"Little Florence was my little girl,

With a face like a tinted pearl,

But Little Florence has wandered away,

And left me only a curl.

With a broken doll and a little dress

And a pair of shoes half worn.

Little Florence was my little girl,

And to think that I did not know

That Little Florence was the world to me.

Some lessons are learned so slow.

And while I pondered, she crept away,

And left our home so still.

And I cannot work, and I cannot pray;

You may chide me if you will.

And say at the least my faith is weak;

Some lessons are learned so slow,

But if this one portion was mine again

I never would slight it so.

For what is the praise of women and men,

To a face like a tinted pearl,

But Little Florence has gone away,

And left me only a curl.

In a lily boat, she is safe afloat

On the waves of the Jasper Sea,

But, Little Florence, I'm missing you so

That I'm calling you back to me,

To the broken doll, and the little dress-

Some blessings are hard to see,

And what can I do with the box of clothes so dear,

And the curl that you left to me.

Mother~

This is a picture of my Grandmother, Flora Sheets, (Tedlie)
at age 6 or 7 yrs., around 1890.  If she was this adorable,
you can imagine how beautiful her "Little Florence" must
have been. 

(Written by Flora Sheets Tedlie, sometime after July 6, 1904, which I have just learned is the date of
 little Florence Belle Tedlie's death)

My beautiful Grandmother

I don't mean to end on a sad note...but this what journaling is all about.  This little poem was probably a page from my grandmother's journal, if she kept one...and has been preserved for me and my future generations to read and ponder.  Had it not been saved, we may have never known about "Little Florence", and I think she needed to be known.

Yes, journaling is a way of preserving family history, providing insights into the ways God has provided for us and taught us thoughout our life's journey.  I only wish I had been more diligent to keep a journal every year of my life.  I've missed a lot of memories...but perhaps that is all a part of God's way of keeping the important stuff and weeding out the "junk"...I don't know, but it is my hope that this will inspire others to take up the pen (or computer keyboard) and start writing. You don't have to be a great writer...just be real. That is what it is all about.  Good night Friends.  Time for me to get to bed...everyone else has settled down...