 It is actually Sunday today and yeah because I typically like will film edit and post you know for tomorrow on Mondays so today this morning we went to church as a family as we typically do every week um we really like to honor God with our time that way it's not like we have to do anything we just really enjoy going and so uh it always makes me thankful and mindful of my time with God and I wanted to share that with you today how I typically go about spending my my time with him uh and like I started prayer journaling so today we're gonna talk about prayer journaling and maybe you've never prayer journaled before I didn't for a long time I thought it was kind of silly like even honestly even praying I was like if our God already knows everything I'm thinking why the heck do I have to say anything why do I have to tell him every little thing um I just realized the importance of us getting it's it's not for his benefits for ours prayers for because because when we bottle things and keep things burdened um and like bottled up it it tends to affect us more and I just find that the more I give it over to him in conversation and prayer um the lighter I feel so I read this book about a year ago called the gratitude diaries and this also kind of helped my journey to prayer journaling is that this lady just decided she was gonna for a year do this experiment and practice gratitude in a journal well I kind of love that idea I like the idea of me being at the end of my life thankful instead of frustrated and tired so I've started journaling more and more um and it's not every day you guys like this doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing not a perfect thing it's like when I think about it I write it down sometimes it's before bed sometimes it's in the middle of the day just when I'm going about my chores and stuff just to get quiet and get thankful for what I've been given and realize that it's like it's not because of anything I've done like I just feel really blessed in my life that way so here's my journal I love it I think my friend my friend Allie gave it to me for a birthday years ago and I I'd started writing in it but I think I because I like I'll get on these kicks and I want to do something 110 percent and then I don't and then I fail I feel like and then I stop this like cycle I'm getting better at that so I'm realizing like it doesn't have to be all the time that I do something okay so I read that gratitude diaries book and I realized like how can I put this into my spiritual life like I believe in Jesus I believe that um he died for me and rose again for my sins and I wanted to incorporate that gratitude I wanted to emphasize that piece of gratitude in my prayer life and because a lot of times my prayers were feeling like I'm just complaining all the time to God I'm I'm just asking him for things and I think sometimes it's good to just say thank you and um realize how much he loves us a couple of friends and I have actually been studying Psalms together and we meet once a week it's like a highlight of my week and we have realized that King David first of all didn't write all of Psalms unbeknownst to most people I bet and we realized that like in a lot of his Psalms he's kind of whiny he's kind of complaining and just like we've realized the word lamenting he's just lamenting to God and he's giving it all to him like the junk the good stuff people trying to kill him like Psalms gets pretty pretty exciting that way so but the cool part is that he doesn't leave it there he gives all this junk to God in conversation and then he goes but you you are still a good God you're still in control I praise you for your name like those types of things and I just it's a very good example about how we can be fully human in our in our interactions with with God but still remind ourselves of who he is and his character so um so yeah I've started wanting to respond more that way wanting to respond more fully human and not try to be perfect um in my prayer life even and just lay it all out there the way the way that I've been made and the way that I I love my life because God loves me just as I am so um I just wanted to encourage you all with that today and maybe you don't believe in Jesus maybe you don't believe that God even exists I just want you to know like I love you everyone has to make their own decision for um what they believe and like I want you to know that I believe that God loves you as well and anything anything that I've said today you could probably take part of it and apply it to your life and just remember that like we can live a life of gratitude we can live um fully human and and be messy and that's okay and God still loves us but I know that our time with him and the more time we dedicate to letting him change our hearts the the less messy that we're gonna get just because he's not gonna leave us that way so um yeah I'm so thankful for this time with you thanks for watching if you haven't already subscribed go ahead and do that and I will see you again next Monday for another episode of Lauren learns we'll talk to you soon go get messy have fun and learn