- Choose an unhurried time in which to write.
- Find a quiet place where you can be alone with your thoughts and with your journal.
- Take a few minutes to think about the writing prompt. Take a few more minutes to also meditate upon the corresponding words of God, remembering it is God who is the source of all that we know about morality.
- Add the date on which you write. This will be helpful later when you go back to read your words, and examine the relationship between what was going on in your life around the time of your writing, and how those events affected your perceptions.
- If you experience "writer's block" read the prompt again while asking yourself the questions "Who?" "Where?" "When?" "Why?" "How?"
- Take the time to pray about what you've written. Prayer is invaluable, and God says that it "accomplishes much" (James 5:16)!
- If you home school you may find the journal a welcome addition to your Bible curriculum. It is a great way to start the home school morning, and gives mom pre-class time to sort her own thoughts.
- If you do not home school you may find the journals useful as a summer project that will not only keep writing skills sharp, but more importantly, give you an added spiritual boost before returning to school in the fall.
- If you are disappointed to be finished when all 100 essays have been completed, either move on to the next volume of questions, or repeat the same journal. If it has taken you a year or more to complete your first 100 essays, you may be surprised how differently the same questions are answered the second time around, with a year of spiritual growth behind you. It is interesting to compare "what you thought then" with "what you know now".
- Discuss with others what you have discovered about God and yourself through the course of journaling.
- Keep your completed journal in a safe place. You, and maybe even your own children one day will be very interested to read this keepsake!
Journaling Toward Moral Excellence