Journaling

No heavy subject today, no spiritual analysis. If I could live my life over I would journal or just keep a diary. So many memories I could review if I had written them down. So many names I could remember if I had written them down. I had a prayer journal for a while and I would write down some of my prayers. It was interesting to read back over those prayers and see when and how they were answered. Some simple prayers that were not written down are stuck in my memory.  I was but five years old more or less when I was with Dad out in the country outside of Bismark N.D. He had been digging a basement under the house and was hauling the dirt out into the countryside in his little pickup truck. In my memory, it was in the thirties model. It would not start after he had unloaded the dirt. Dad was angry and this little five-year-old boy was scared. I knew how to pray and I did. I step a few feet away from Dad and the truck and asked God to let the truck start. It started. Why I remember that incident I do not know but there it is in my memories. Still, at that age I didn't yet know how to write.  Some things I remember because someone older than me told me how it happened. Like the time I got the scar on my face. I was even younger and though it must have hurt I don't remember when it happened. I don't remember the names of kids from school. Probably because we went to eight different towns and eight different schools during my 12 years of public schooling. I remember one name Judson Poschel, probably because it is such a different name from the last school during my 12th grade. If I could have written the name down in a diary, I could remember more names. I also remember Ronnie Stoecker, he lived 3 miles across the fields as the crow flies from where we lived on the farm. He was a good friend. My memories get all confused as far as a timeline. Did I light the campfire in the dry grass in Bismark behind the new garage Dad built before or after the prayer incident?  I wrote a list of the almost sixty vehicles I have owned since age 18 and can remember them only because I wrote them down. The first car I bought on my own was a 1957 Fiat 4 door sedan with suicide doors on the front. It had a four-speed on the column. I wish I still owned it. My 61 falcon station wagon that I paid $200 for and drove for about 10 years.  If I read the list I have many memories I can recall just because I wrote that list. My 76 MG midget that I almost killed me and my two kids in. I have many memories of my 51 chevy 5 window pickup. Some good some bad memories.  How many things have I forgotten because I didn't write them down?  I would tell my grandkids to journal or keep a diary if they would listen to me.  So much has happened in the six decades that I have already forgotten. I enjoy writing this blog. I have already forgotten the things I read from my older posts in just five years. I could write a book on going through a divorce, I have had four.  I probably have the record in my family and in my church. A bad record I should add. Hopefully, I learned some things. Since this is my sabbath (12/22/2019)  day as I write this, I am writing for the joy of writing. A day of rest and relaxation. With programs like Blogspot and Wordpress and computers today it is so easy. Think of the things, the changes I have seen in my lifetime. I think the oldest car I ever drove was my 51 chevy and today we see self-driving cars and semi-trucks. Even my children lived without running water and an outhouse and what will they see by the ends of their lives? I would probably have boxes of notebooks by now if I could have written my life's story.  God bless, LVZ.