For Christmas when I was nine years old I got a diary. It started me on a very important journey in my life. I set out determined to write every day, but when entries deteriorated to very mundane, meaningless entries I became less regular in writing in my diary. Still, when something I felt was significant did happen, I did write it down in  my journal.

I don’t know what ever became of that diary; but the habit of writing my thoughts and feelings down proved very helpful later after we moved. Every few days I would get a feeling almost like a compulsion to write. I always wrote in the form of a prayer, addressing each entry to God and asking Him for help and guidance. Frequently the words would be flowing out onto the paper faster than I could think; and I would reach a point where something would come out onto the paper that I had not consciously realized before. When that happened I would ponder it and think about the implications of what I had written. The compulsion subsided until a few days later when the whole experience would occur again, resulting in a deeper insight into my thoughts and feelings, and a deepening relationship with my Savior.

There was a season when I did little writing – the first few years after the move when I was almost eleven. Still, I believe the writing I had already done served me well during the years when I couldn’t bring myself to write and my life was reaching a point where it forked into a multi-pronged diversion. It was as if I were living 4 or 5 different lives simultaneously, each independent from the others. Looking back it seems apparent that the crisis of the move and the multiple challenges it brought made a major impact on the multiplicity.