About Journaling With Jesus
How Journaling with Jesus Began!
Over the past 30+ years, Jesus has continuously drawn Tom and I into a deeper and increasingly more intimate relationship with Him. He guided us to know His love for us when we needed to know it the most, to depend on Him when we did not know where to go, and to be thankful for His faithfulness in our weakness. Our journey has been marked with personally discovering the power of prayer and following His leading to bring others to Him. As a deacon at a local church in the St. Louis area, Tom led a prayer ministry that included coordinating local National Day of Prayer events in the city and then statewide. During this season, we traveled extensively to meet and pray with pastors across the state encouraging and organizing prayer gatherings. These travels led to Tom to organizing a prayer team for the Governor of Missouri. In this way, God moved to create unity within the Body of Christ by gathering leaders from many denominations and prayer streams to pray together with the governor. It was beautiful to experience Southern Baptist and Methodist pastors, Lutheran and Presbyterian ministers, Assembly of God preachers, Roman Catholic priests, and numerous prayer leaders to gather and pray for and with the governor.
Through a prayer event we coordinated at the St. Louis Arch, we were introduced to an elderly woman, names Elsie, and an invitation to an Ancient Paths seminar where we were introduced to Listening Prayer. We discovered the power of drawing even closer to Jesus together by listening to Him. We fell in love with the still small Voice of God and the increased awareness of His love and presence. Praying in this way became a way of life for our family. We listened to Jesus together as a married couple and with our children. He consistently answered our prayers, brought wisdom, counsel, guidance, and healing into our lives, and strengthened our faith in Him. Learning to listen to Jesus and inviting Him into the unresolved pain from my childhood was essential to the deep healing I experienced and chronicled in my book, “Love Triumphs: Rescued from the Deep Wounds and Dark Secrets of Childhood Sexual Abuse.” Listening to Jesus became a way of life.
At the beginning of the COVID pandemic in March 2020, I felt prompted by Jesus to start a Zoom Prayer Room with a handful of friends. Like everyone worldwide, we were dealing with illness, loss, uncertainty, and fear. Within months, the Prayer Room grew to four online prayer rooms with over 60 women from six different states and 3 countries attending. Why the Rapid Growth? The answer is simple. We were experiencing Jesus’ loving presence amidst our crises. He was continually drawing more and more women to Himself. With eight denominations present, and many differing views on prayer, we were led by Jesus to lay down what we knew about prayer and bring each other directly to Him. Amid many different styles of prayer and denominational approaches, we felt Jesus say to, “Bring her to Me.”
Thus, we agreed to refrain from teaching, preaching, exhorting, rescuing, or telling each other what to think, feel or do. We brought everything directly to Jesus and allowed Him to speak into our lives, our fears, our disappointments and our pain. This created unity within each group and our love for Jesus and each other grew. We brought everything directly to Jesus and waited for His answer, and He did not disappoint us. He spoke to us with Scripture, songs, and simple, yet wise counsel. He healed our hearts by sharing kind and loving words, comforting images, profound insight, and powerful perspective. Jesus consistently spoke to us about our identity and value which helped us better understand and appreciate His identity and value in our lives. He was healing us from the inside out and continues to do so today. There has been no limit to how He reveals Himself to us, and we are forever changed.
As we honor, exalt, and meditate on the Word of God, Journaling with Jesus is not a traditional Bible Study, it is a time of Sacred Prayer. Though we value the spiritual gifts, during Journaling with Jesus, we do not share words of prophecy or words of knowledge. We discovered that while we were talking, even if we were sharing what we thought we heard from God for another person, we were not listening and often missed hearing directly from the still, small, profound voice of God. We agreed that while we meet during Journaling with Jesus sessions, we would make space to hear directly from the Author of all knowledge and prophecy — Jesus. No matter how educated in Scripture and Biblical understanding we might be, our words fall short of the most wise and tender-hearted teacher — Jesus. He speaks to us uniquely and always in alignment with His written word. During those early days of praying in the Zoom prayer rooms, Jesus authored a simple process that helped us consistently draw near to Him, experience His presence, and be transformed by His love. We named this process Journaling with Jesus.
We invite you to Journal with Jesus and enter into an even more intimate relationship with Him.