When Old Journals Become Living Testimony
This past week, I opened a treasure chest that’s been sitting quietly in my closet for years. I hadn’t opened it in ages—not even since moving back to Canada. Inside were all my old diaries, some dating back to 2002 or 2003.
As I flipped through those pages, I was honestly shocked by how much I had written, how much I had prayed, and how much I had thought about Christ. It completely shifted my perspective. My experience of coming to real living faith—where I can honestly say that I have been regenerated in Korea was so intense and transformative that I had quietly assumed I wasn’t really a Christian before—maybe just a cultural one at best, or someone who had nominally believed but had slowly drifted away in my lifestyle and actions. But there it was, written in my own handwriting: page after page marked by longing for God. Year after year.
Even my school agendas and schedulers—the ones we got every new school year—were filled with notes about Jesus. I found the date I was baptized. April 15. I had no memory of recording that. Since coming to real faith in South Korea, I had many thoughts of wanting to get rebaptized. to memorialize this new phase of faith in my life. I abstained, because I believe in one Lord, one baptism, and I know that God’s timeline is different from ours. My baptism at sixteen may have been efficacious for me 11 years later. This is my conviction on baptism, and so why I had decided to not get rebaptized despite my personal longing to in Korea. However, now that I found my old journals again recording my baptism, I am really glad that I did not.
One entry stopped me cold: “I wish desperately that I knew Christ better.” I don’t even know when I wrote it. High school? Earlier? Another entry, years later, talked about giving tithes. Another about wanting to take my faith seriously. Another about the new year and starting fresh with God.
Over and over again, I realized something: these weren’t just journal entries. They were petitions. Prayer requests. Evidence that He heard me and saw me then—even when I would later forget.
In one journal from an entirely different year, I wrote something like: “Lord, I see You everywhere today. You gave me a new friend. I feel Your presence everywhere.” Reading that now felt surreal.
As I reflected, something else became clear. Somewhere along the way, the enemy began working overtime to pull me away. Looking back, it makes sense. These were the prayers of a person desperately wanting to know her Maker.
That realization connected with my experience in Korea of coming to faith that first day and first week of moving to Korea. The most pivotal dream that I had in Daegu that started everything, the one where the demon that I was locked into a terrifying room with, pressured me to deny that Jesus is Lord. Little did that demon know that my refusal to do so would be my proclamation of faith that started everything in Korea. Since really coming to Christ in Korea, I have always known that seeds of life had been planted very early in my life—roots sown deeply by my loving and faithful Christian parents. Over time, especially upon moving to Canada where things are so loose and culturally liberal, the enemy tried to pluck up those good seeds by orchestrating a series of destructive events in my life to lead me astray and to bring me to such sorrow and confusion that all it would take was one renunciation, one final confirmation to renounce my faith once and for all through a demonic dream. Little did they know that God’s superior plan would backfire on them.
They worked hard. And for a time, I was very far from God compared to the girl in those early journal entries. But when the moment came—when they thought they had finally won—the very thing meant to destroy me became my proclamation of faith. Everything started again there.
Seeing that now leaves me honestly mind-blown. The power of writing and of record-keeping, especially written prayer preserved in ink is mind-blowing to me right now.
God is so faithful! And timeless. I may have forgotten those prayers, but the Lord never did. He answered prayers I had forgotten I prayed years later. Everything came full circle. My prayers to know Him deeply. Specific prayers for people I loved. Even events I couldn’t have connected on my own.
If I hadn’t written those things down, I would have forgotten them entirely. But He graciously allowed me to write so that one day in 2026 I could open a chest in my closet and remember.
The Lord is good and faithful to His sheep.