A New Day: A Guided Journal - Rilegato

Sandi Patty is the most awarded female vocalist in contemporary Christian music history with thirty-nine Dove Awards, five Grammy Awards, and four Billboard Music Awards. Her twenty-four albums have sold more than eleven million units including three platinum and five gold recordings. In 2004 Sandi was inducted into the GMA Hall of Fame and in 2005 she penned her autobiography Broken on the Back Row. She has regularly appeared on network TV including The Tonight Show, Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee, CNN, and Entertainment Tonight.

A Fresh Start with Each New Day

Keeping a journal is writing the story of your life as it unfolds. Good and bad, happy and sad, silly and profound.

I'm blessed with an extraordinarily happy life today, but there have been seasons of my life I'd rather forget, seasons when my soul has been "downcast within me." Yet I've learned the value of remembering the hard times as well as the joyful moments, and a journal helps me do that. You see, it's only by looking back that we can appreciate the difficulties we've overcome, the fears we've conquered, the lessons we've learned. It's only by looking back that we can see that single set of footprints in the sand, the footprints of the Savior as he carried us when weakness stole our strength.

When I review the random writings and journal jottings I've made throughout my life, I see again and again the most blessed gift God gives to all of us each morning and throughout the day: the promise of a second chance, a new beginning, a fresh start.

Because of his great love, we are not consumed by the challenges that confront us, the mistakes we make, or the losses we endure. His compassions never fail. And every new day that dawns brings us another gift of grace, another opportunity to try again.

I've put together this guided journal hoping you'll find it an inviting, comfortable place to write the story of your life, one day at a time, during the next one hundred days. It's "guided" because the Scripture passage and accompanying thought from me to you have been selected to encourage and inspire you to write. They're intended as a little spark to ignite your spirit and encourage you to record your thoughts and prayers, especially on those days when you may think you have nothing to say. I hope you'll let God's Word -- and my gentle prompting -- get you started.

When these pages are full, you'll have recorded a chapter of your personal history. I hope it's one you'll enjoy reading and rereading in the years ahead, finding in your own words the insight and wisdom gleaned from one hundred new days, well lived.

Sandi Patty

A New Day © 2006 by Sandi Patty