Transcribing Barbara White’s Diaries

Two years ago, I published four of my friend Barbara White’s books, collections of her award-winning Along The Way newspaper columns. I feel her writings have the potential to become Christian spiritual classics.

My August 20, 2007 diary entry Shuffling Paper, tells the incredible saga, with photos, of how I managed the heroic feat of transforming her shopping bag full of columns into books.

Last year, Barbara entrusted me with her personal diaries to transcribe and publish. Again, she presented me with another bag full of material—this time it was dozens of hand-written, spiral-bound notebooks.

I try to transcribe these things now and then—a horrendous job for a guy who has trouble seeing and even more trouble typing.

I think she hates me.

Anyhow, beginning with her entries in 1976, finally I have now transcribed up to her first entry of 1987. Here’s a copy that entry:

Random Thoughts For 1987

This is a different year, this time I want to do things my way.

Whom God loves, He beats the Hell out of!

We get into trouble in the area of our greatest strength, our gift.

I need to give myself to service of the few rather than to try to be important to the many.

I need to go down and out with people, not sit up in my devotional tower.

I need to return to the basics—Who God is, what the Bible is, who Jesus is—foundational stuff.

I need to hold on before I can move on.

It’s better to be kind than to be right.

God deliberately left many things vague and mysterious. I can live with that.

When speaking at retreats, I need to impart a Spirit, not a set of rules.

Nobody remembers what I may teach or say, they remember what I do, they remember the Spirit in which I speak, condemnatory or forgiving, up or down. It’s not a matter of talk but of power.

Whether or not I can see where I’m going, the important thing is to keep going.

Those who strive to be great, will be last. God’s woman is not the person you’d expect. She is one of the little ones who kept the faith.

Nobody falls into sin. We jump!

Maturity admits that I am to blame. No one will take care of me. The world is not fair. I am to take responsibility. Admit I have done it to myself.

Restoration means, “Thy kingdom come”.

Barbara White’s Along The Way series of books is available at www.bluefishbooks.info .