This is the month of reflection….introspection….decisions.

However, this year..this year… it’s a real strange one for me, even though I’ve been going through this journey for almost forty years. After beginning my ‘search for truth’ way back in my days of Catholicism, and then landing in the middle of a ‘back to the beginning’ spiritual movie. But…this year. This year.

When one ‘reflects‘ … one also has to remember – in order to introspect. But my heart is too fragile right now, my heart is too freshly scarred from the life-changing events that seem to have happened yesterday. After being a part of a family for 71 years…the mainstay of that family… well, is gone. Daddy & Momma … are gone. Mom in January, Dad in June. And I’m still in the little rental that we shared. I should be used to people leaving…but maybe it’s a good thing that I’m not. At least it means that I’m not a closed book….I can still ‘read’.

It has been a strange and troubling time since beginning this journey of Elul so many years ago. As I glance in the rear-view mirror, misty eyed, a blured reflection of those years slide silently by.

From the heart strings that were stretched like rubber bands when I walked away from everything I thought I ‘knew‘ back in the mid 80’s. Departing from the church my entire extended family was part of for centuries, to changing my music venue from Country to Messianic (Israel music for those wondering). Then learning so much depth in bible studies to visiting Israel several times in the 90’s to debating it’s validity to my own family and walking on a different path.

Truth prevailed as the excitement of watching my boys and my husband ‘get on board’ and be supportive, to the downfall of having a fall out with my oldest son and being estranged for almost four years.  Than my youngest son passes at age 41, and the following year my husband joined him, while my oldest languished in a prison not of his own making.  Then…this year comes and I am feeling a bit more confident, steadier on my feet…and then the proverbial rug is pulled out.

So….that brings me up-to-date….and now I have to do the introspection – because as we all know – when we look back, there’s no stopping the memories that flood forth, and we have to deal with it all over again. But…isn’t that what a journey is all about? Evaluating, re-evaluating, looking at things, turning them over again and again…and choosing how to keep going forward.

And so the reflection and introspection continues….how are you doing?