The Blessing of Journaling

2 Nephi 24:7 — "The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet; they break forth into singing."

I had a "moment" with this verse about three years ago. Thankfully, I recorded it in my scripture notes because today I would have remembered very little of it otherwise.

As I read the verse this morning, one phrase jumped out at me: they break forth into singing. Rest, quiet, and singing all in the same sentence. To me, that paints a picture of peace so deep that joy naturally follows.

That thought took me back to a Stake Choir experience I had years ago.

The choir had just begun practicing for Stake Conference. Michelle Sundwall introduced a beautiful piece of music, but the copies were difficult to read—copies of copies, handwritten notes, cut-and-pasted lyrics. As I left rehearsal, I casually mentioned to Clyde, "I could rewrite that and make it much easier to sing."

That simple thought became the beginning of something unexpected.

The next morning, I opened my Finale program and began entering the music. By evening I was deep into the project, fitting it in between my regular responsibilities. The work itself wasn't remarkable, but what happened while I was doing it was.

A feeling of love and gratitude washed over me—one of those sacred moments that is difficult to describe but impossible to deny. I remember sitting at my piano, covering my face with my hands, simply absorbing the feeling. The Spirit was present in a powerful way. I felt the Lord's approval and knew that this small act of service mattered to Him.

Today, as I reread my notes, I realized something surprising. I remembered that I had worked on the music, but I had forgotten almost everything else. The warmth. The gratitude. The overwhelming feeling of being useful in the Lord's hands. Those precious details would have been lost had I not written them down.

That is one of the great blessings of journaling and scripture notes. We often assume we'll remember our spiritual experiences, but memories fade. Feelings that once seemed unforgettable gradually slip away. A written record allows us to revisit those sacred moments and feel them again.

I'm grateful that years ago I took a few minutes to record what happened. Today, those notes reminded me not only of a choir arrangement, but of a loving Heavenly Father who occasionally lets us know that what we're doing matters.

Sometimes the greatest blessing of writing something down is that years later, the Lord can use our own words to remind us of what we once knew. And what a sweet reminder that in this one thing, the Lord used what I can do to further His work, because honestly, this was a joyous song to sing in Stake Conference as we praised the Lord in song!