Dear Journaling Community
If March was about unbecoming, shedding the layers that no longer serve us April is about what happens in the ground after something has been buried. We arrive at April carrying the Easter story in our bones.
The cross, the tomb, the silence of the in-between and the rising.
But here is what I keep thinking about.
Between the death and the resurrection there was soil.
There was something no one could see. The seed had fallen. The stone was rolled and in that hidden place a life was already stirring even though the women who loved Him went home believing it was over.
I think many of us are in a soil season right now. Something has ended. Something has not yet begun. It’s this space where we feel like nothing is happening.
But the soil is not nothing. The soil is everything.
This month, we are asking: What is growing in me that I cannot yet see?
We are learning to trust the underground work. The quiet shifts. The roots that form before the bloom. We are learning that not every season of growth looks like growth.
Some seasons look like silence. And that is exactly where April meets us.
Your Permission Slip
This month, you have permission to:
- Not have an answer yet
- Trust the process even when you cannot see it
- Be in the dark without calling it failure
- Rest in the soil without rushing the bloom
- Believe that God is working in what feels like nothing
Write one of these on a sticky note. Put it somewhere you will see it every morning.
Your Weekly Journaling Prompts
Week 1: The Burial and What Has Been Planted
Before new life comes something must be surrendered to the ground. A seed does not grow by holding onto its shell. It grows by letting go. This week, we name what has been buried that old season, that old version of the thing that has ended and we honor it instead of rushing past it before letting go.
Verse of the Week
JOHN 12:24
“Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
YOUR JOURNALING PROMPT
The Burial Inventory
What has “died” in your life recently? It might be a relationship, a role, a dream, a habit or a version of yourself. Write it down without judgement.
Then write: “I release you to the soil you were real, you mattered and your ending is not the end of me.”
Your Action
Find a quiet moment this week, even just three minutes. Hold a seed in your hand, like a sunflower seed or a bean. Look at it. It does not look like a flower. It does not look like food. It looks like almost nothing. Yet everything it will ever become is already inside it. Place it somewhere you will see it this week as a reminder.
Week 2: The Waiting and What HAPPENS BENEATH THE SOIL
This is the hardest week. The waiting. The soil season where nothing appears to be happening. We are tempted to dig up what we planted just to check if it is growing. We are tempted to force the bloom. Even in the dark soil underground this is not an empty dark place this is where roots form. We just have to take a moment, a pause and realise that roots need to settle, anchor and make sure it is steady before shooting forward to stand tall.
Verse of the Week
Ecclesiastes 3:11
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
Your journaling prompt
The Unseen Work
Write a letter to the version of yourself that is forming underground, the woman you are becoming but have not met yet.
What do you want her to know?
What are you trusting God to build in her?
Start with: “Dear future me, you do not exist yet but I can feel you forming. Here is what I hope for you.”
Your Mood Check In: Draw a simple scale from 1 to 5 in your journal. Mark where you are today:
- I feel buried. I cannot see anything.
- I feel restless. The waiting is heavy.
- I am holding steady. Not sure, but okay.
- I sense something shifting. Quietly.
- I feel new life stirring. It is small, but it is there.
Come back to this scale every few days this week. Do not try to move the number. Just notice it.
Week 3: The Stirring and Signs of New Life
In nature the first sign of growth is so small you could miss it. A crack in the seed. A pale green thread pushing through dark earth / soil. It does not announce itself. It does not arrive with confidence. It arrives trembling.
This week, we look for the trembling. The small, almost invisible signs that something new is forming in us.
Verse of the Week
Isaiah 43:19
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
Your Journaling Prompt
The Small Shifts List
Write down 3 things that feel even slightly different in you lately. They do not need to be dramatic. Look for the quiet evidence:
- A conversation you handled differently than you would have six months ago
- A boundary you held that you would have dropped before
- A moment of peace in a place that used to make you anxious
- A desire that surprised you, something new you want that you did not want before
- A prayer that changed shape because you are asking for something different now
These are shoots. They look fragile. But they are proof that the soil has been working.
Your Action
The Freedom Day Reflection on 27 April
South Africa pauses this month to remember freedom. In your journal, write your own personal freedom declaration. What are you free from this April that you were not free from in January?
It can be small. Freedom from a thought pattern. Freedom from a toxic habit. Freedom from the need to perform. Write it as a statement:
“This April, I am free from [fill in the blank]. I did not earn this freedom. It was grown in me while I was not looking.”
Week 4: The Bloom and Welcoming What Emerges
You cannot force a bloom. But you can welcome one. This week, we stand at the edge of May and look back at the soil season of April. What emerged? What is still forming? And what do we want to carry forward?
Verse of the Week
Isaiah 58:11
“The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”
Your Journaling Prompt
The Garden Report
Imagine your inner life as a garden. Walk through it on the page. Write about:
- What bloomed this month? What new thing emerged, even if it is tiny?
- What is still underground? What are you still waiting for?
- What needs more water? What part of you needs more attention, care, or grace?
- What needs to be left alone? What should you stop fussing over and just let grow?
Your Welcome Statement:
Write a one sentence welcome to the woman who is emerging from this soil season. Make it personal. Make it kind.
“I welcome the woman who [fill in the blank].”
Examples:
- “I welcome the woman who no longer needs permission to rest.”
- “I welcome the woman who is learning to trust what she cannot control.”
- “I welcome the woman who is done performing and ready to just be.”
Your Daily Exhale Habit Tracker
This month, we are tracking Trust.
Not productivity. Not goals. Not steps or litres of water. Trust.
Your daily practice:
Spend 2 minutes each day sitting with this one question:
“What am I trusting God with today that I cannot see?”
You do not need to write a page. You do not even need to write a sentence. Just sit with the question. Let it breathe. If a word or phrase surfaces, write it down.
How to track:
Draw a simple grid of 30 squares in your journal, one for each day of April. Colour in a square for each day you paused even for 60 seconds, to sit with the question. At the end of the month, look at the grid. That is a month of trust made visible.
Or use this habit tracker for the next four weeks.
Your Small Challenge: Plant Something Real
This month’s challenge is as literal as it gets.
Plant something.
A seed in a pot on your windowsill. A herb in a mug. A flower in the garden. It does not matter what.
As you press the seed into the soil, say quietly:
“I trust the process. I trust the dark. I trust that what I cannot see is already becoming.”
Watch it over the month. Water it. Wait. Let it teach you what your journal already knows: that growth begins in the dark and the bloom is never the whole story.
A Closing Prayer
God, I do not always trust the soil. I want to see the bloom before I believe it is coming. I want proof before I rest. You are the God of the underground the One who works in the hidden places, the quiet spaces, the seasons that look like nothing from the outside. Teach me to trust what I cannot see. Teach me to rest in the dark earth without digging up my own seeds and when the bloom comes, small, trembling, unexpected, help me recognise it as Your faithfulness. Amen.
With grace,
Debbera
