Years ago NAPA auto parts used this slogan to help you see that fathering you through a car repair was a big part of what NAPA know How is all about. Nothing like feeling helpless under the hood with no clue why your car won’t start or it’s overheating, alone no one to help.. NOT TRUE. A lie straight from hell but how easily I buy into that. Yes, someone knows what’s wrong and can and will help you.

Asking for help, admitting I can’t go it alone, well lots of old wounds, pride, fear… It’s really a messy place.

Last Night I went to see “I Can Only Imagine” last night with my wife, Tammy. Bart Millard with Mercy Me’s Story behind the song. (Spoiler Alert) Bart’s Journal from way back when he was 10 years old played a big part in his eventually writing that song. A Journal he got at a Christian Camp, a place where he and God met intimately and as a result it became his written record Bart wasn’t alone and it changed the lives of millions with a simple set of words, “I can only imagine”.

Bart wasn’t alone and his written record proves that. So this morning I went back to my first journal entry, July 25th 1995. Here is how it reads, “Night of July 25th in prayer I was asked to write down my views on my relationship with the Lord day by day.”  What a gift I was given, I wasn’t alone and reading entry after entry, things long stolen from my memory shocked me.

Here was the biggest shocker. A few months after I started journaling I  was diagnosed with Lymphoma. I had totally forgotten this even a few nights after I got the word I had cancer. Here is the entry, “Thank you Jesus for the spiritual battle I have experienced since Friday night, Sunday night I prayed for Jesus to help me in my night fear and as I turned over there on the pillow was a check. Amazingly immediately I knew what it meant. Thank you Jesus, for showing me You had paid for me and I am Yours, thank you Jesus.

Two days later was when I got the worst news of that time, my entry said, “I’m in serious trouble by the worlds standards T-Cell Lymphoma appears to be a very deadly disease.”

Talk about Mercy Me… Jesus showed me that check right when I needed it and I had totally, I mean totally forgotten… WE are not alone, and though the enemy steals our memory, nothing like a good journal to keep our treasure where we can see it….