This year, I’m using the Present Over Perfect Guided Journal. I read Shauna Neiquist’s Present Over Perfect book when it came out a few years ago and so much of it just connected with me. When I saw she had created a journal, I knew it was right for this season of my life. The journal has small excerpts from the book and prompts to help you think, reflect, and write. I’ll be sharing some of the prompts and my responses.
Prompt (pg. 93): What do you need to burn down in your life to make space for a new way of living?
Burning down something provides warmth and light. Energy for something else. Ash to fertilize new growth. Burning something down is a beacon of change.
I need to burn down the concern about what others think about me. I need to burn down my own need for approval. I need to burn down the striving to prove my worth.
And in their place will be freedom to fully live, to fully be. Then new energy will be available for adventure and vibrant living.
The remnants of that which has been burned will serve as fertilizer for a rich faith from which new life will grow. My new life. Other new lives in faith. My work and healing and life will be a place for others to grow and find faith and healing and new life too.
Rev. Kris Mares 