Enjoying the Gardens and Prayer Journaling

This morning when I woke up, I decided that we would spend the morning at a nearby 55 acre garden.  So that’s what we did.  We were some of the first people there so we had it practically to ourselves for a little while.  

The first thing we did was start out with prayer journaling.  I’ll explain what that is at the end of this post…

Next, we walked through the sculpture garden and enjoyed looking at the sculptures that depict scenes from Jesus Christ’s life.  

 

We made our way over to another part of the garden and did some nature journaling, inspired by John Muir Laws.  Each of us picked something that we wanted to spend some time observing and drawing.  Evelyn chose a flower.  Landon chose a pinecone.  Porter chose a leaf.  I chose an olive tree.

the boys found this grasshopper and wanted me to take a picture of it

 

The weather was beautiful and we really enjoyed spending the morning outside in the gorgeous gardens.  I just felt so much joy and gratitude that I get to live this life.  

 

Now to explain prayer journaling…

My word for 2019 is pray.  Throughout this year, I have been working on improving my prayers and making them more meaningful and something that strengthens my relationship with God.

Something that I started doing at the beginning of the year is prayer journaling.  I don’t write in this every time that I pray, but fairly often.  As I say my prayer to Heavenly Father in my head/heart, I write it out.  And then I sit and listen.  As I hear/feel Him speak to me, I write down what He says.  

I have had some really special moments while doing prayer journaling and it really has helped me to strengthen my relationship with Heavenly Father.  I used to really struggle with prayer.  Even though I knew that Heavenly Father was listening, I just didn’t feel the connection.  I felt like I was just talking to the air.  It didn’t feel like a two way conversation.  But now it does.  Prayer journaling has helped a lot with that.

I want my kids to develop a strong relationship with Heavenly Father and to have a testimony of prayer.  I want them to be confident that they will receive help when they need it.  I want them to feel confident that they can talk with Heavenly Father and have a conversation with Him and receive personal revelation. 

So I have been introducing them to prayer journaling.  Every morning, we each take our prayer journals to a different room in the house so we can be alone.  I told the kids that they can ask Heavenly Father anything – even a question like “Is there anything that you want to tell me?” – and then write down what He says.  This has been going really well so far.  The girls don’t know how to write yet so they just draw a picture of what Heavenly Father says to them.

It’s so fun and special when the kids come back to me after the quiet prayer journaling time is over and they are so excited to tell me what Heavenly Father said to them.  It is really neat to see them gaining confidence and strengthening their testimonies of prayer and personal revelation.     

the kids’ prayer journals

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