Divine connections in my notebook.
- Natalia H García
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Paper Doesn't Judge. Even if my sister and her friends did.
It didn't start with a pretty journal. Or a spiritual ritual. It began with whatever paper happened to be nearby:
school notebooks,
loose sheets,
forgotten notepads around the house.
From a young age, I wrote to understand what I was feeling. There were things I didn't know how to say out loud. But when I wrote them down, something began to settle.
The page became a quiet place where I could be honest without feeling watched.
It was 2008. Fourth grade. Eleven years old. Introverted, intense, and far too sentimental for my age.
Most of what I wrote ended up in worn spiral notebooks that spent their lives bent inside my backpack. I'm left-handed, so many pages carried smudges of graphite trailing behind my hand.
I wrote wherever I found space. And sometimes that space happened to be my math notebook.
And right there, something happened that, without me knowing it, would shape my relationship with writing forever.
I Didn't Know That Drawing Hearts Would Break Mine
One day, my sister accidentally took that notebook to school.
Mixed in with the math exercises were pages where an eleven-year-old girl reflected with complete seriousness on her love life. She was convinced she was in love with two boys at the same time.
My sister realized it wasn't her notebook.
But she didn't close it. She read it.
And then she showed it to her friends.
I found out when she came back laughing with them, returning it open to the pages covered in my handwriting and the little hearts I had drawn in the margins. They had even gone looking around school for the boy I wrote about.
They hadn't just read it.
They gave it back to me open.
I still remember that moment. Not the words. Not the laughter.
Only the sense that something deeply private had been exposed under too much light.
I thought I would stop writing after that.
But I didn't.
Because even after feeling exposed, writing remained the only place where something inside me could speak honestly.
When My Questions Started Answering Themselves
Over the years, what started as a way to vent slowly became something else.
Much later, a teacher mentioned a book called Conversations with God.
The idea was simple: write a question, sit in silence, then write the answer without trying to control it too much.
When I heard it, something clicked immediately. Not because it felt new, but because it felt strangely familiar.
So I started doing it more consciously.
Questions about friendships. Decisions. Fear. Things I struggled to admit even to myself.
And then came the inevitable question:
"Am I inventing these answers… or do they really come from somewhere deeper?"
I've never fully answered that question. But I kept writing.
Because something in those answers felt different.
Not perfect. Not magical. Just clearer.
As if there were a part of me less confused than the rest. A part capable of looking at things without so much noise.
Little by little, I began to notice something difficult to explain:
sometimes clarity appears only after we stop trying to control it.
When the Words Arrived Before I Did
Years later, that same dynamic moved off the page.
During a Zoom call with the Yoam team, someone asked if anyone wanted to close with a few words. There were a few seconds of silence.
I raised my hand without thinking too much.
Almost immediately, panic set in: I have no idea what I'm going to say.
But underneath that there was another feeling.
Quieter. Less mental. Something closer to trust.
So I spoke.
I don't remember everything I said. But I do remember one sentence that surprised me as it left my mouth:
"It's not your job to give the answers. That's my job."
What struck me most wasn't the sentence itself.
It was the feeling. As if the words had arrived an instant before I spoke them.
I had never experienced it that way before. Yet something in it felt deeply familiar. Because it resembled what had happened so many times before on a blank page:
the moment when effort softens and something quieter begins to emerge.
The Real Vertigo
Some time later, a colleague sent me part of what I had said on that call.
When I read it, I felt something unexpected: relief.
Because there's something more uncomfortable than not understanding what's happening to us: It's accepting the possibility that we may be more deeply accompanied than we realize.
For a long time I thought faith was the difficult part.
Now I think the real vertigo isn't believing in a higher presence.
It's accepting that you can be heard.
I believe in God…but many times I don't believe in myself.
I still find it hard to accept that that gaze could be directed toward me too.
Over time, I found a name for the presence I had been encountering all along.
The Urantia Book calls it the Thought Adjuster.
When I came across that idea, it felt less like discovering something new and more like finding language for something I had already experienced.
Journaling and spirituality
Today there are more spiritual paths than ever. Teachers. Podcasts. Retreats. Apps.
And yet, many people still feel profoundly alone.
Sometimes I think part of the disconnection comes from feeling like there is always something more to learn before we can hear what is already happening inside us.
What I found through writing since I was eleven was something much simpler.
We don't always need a great revelation. Sometimes we just need a place where we can stop hiding from ourselves.
Writing never felt like a spiritual declaration. It felt more like opening a small interior door.
And sometimes, after enough silence, something answered from the other side.
Because in the end, you can't receive what you don't allow yourself to name.
Your Turn
Before you close this page, I have a challenge for you.
Tonight, before you go to sleep, take a piece of paper and write down an honest question.
Not the smart one. Not the spiritual one. The real one.
At first, it may feel awkward. You may not know what to write. You may wonder if you're making it all up. That's okay.
The goal isn't to receive a profound answer.
It's simply to make room for a conversation that most of us rarely allow ourselves to have.
Then sit in silence long enough to notice what comes.
Maybe nothing happens right away. Or maybe you'll discover that something has been waiting patiently for your attention all along.
I've never been able to predict what comes from an honest question. But I've learned not to underestimate one.
And if you do try it, I'd love to hear what happened:
What question did you write down?
What was hardest to admit?
What surprised you?
What answered back?
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