JANUARY JOURNAL: DAY 1

To write daily is a challenge and a cure.

A cure for not writing, certainly.

A cure also for not having eyes to see or ears to hear.

I want to look penetratingly at the life I'm living, to make it last. Oh, how I want it to last!

At church this morning, we read Ecclesiastes 3:11, about God having put eternity in man's heart.

That must be why I want everything I own to last forever.

My water bottle, my boots, my Bible, my Kindle. I don't want new. I want the same.

I bought a LeSportsac purse just days after Bauer was born, and used it every single day for eleven years, with no spares or substitutes. I wore my Tom's till they looked like this. From October through March, I will wear the same two pairs of Hue jeggings, every single day, with never a thought of straying. I eat no-bake bars for almost every breakfast, and I want my Modern Forestry candles to burn forever. Call it loyalty or call it denial, I resist endings and wearings out. There's an eternal flame in my heart.

This January, I will sit at my writing table day upon day, and stare out the window on the same lake at which I hope to stare forever. I will journal bits of my journey, to challenge myself to see, to experience the hope that comes from discipline, and to touch the eternity in my heart.