Reflection

It's almost the fall season.  Another year is slowly winding down.  Some days it feels like a mad dash to the end of the year.  Trying to look back on the year, people whom I haven't seen in a while asking me how I've been, what I've been up to and I pause to answer because I really don't have an answer.  Or I don't have an answer that I want to share.  It's been an odd year.  I've found myself in places and situations that I really haven't wanted to be.  Not that they were bad places, or anything like that.  I just didn't want to be there.  So, I really wasn't and now that I look back, I feel ashamed that I felt that way. 

It was Jim Elliott who said, "Wherever you are, be all there."  Actually, the whole quote is, "Wherever you are be all there.  Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God."  And looking at that, I'm again ashamed.  Again, it's not because I was someplace I wasn't supposed to be and that's the whole point.  I was where I was supposed to be and I didn't want to be there.  God had me in a place and I was envious of those who had left and despised those with whom I was left and I am now ashamed.  I'm ashamed that I let opportunities of the moment escape; opportunities to be light in a dark place; opportunities to take relationships to the next level; opportunities to learn and grow from those around me who had so much to offer and I ignored it and them.  How sad is that? 

It's almost the fall season.  Fall, rather than the beginning of the year is my time for reflection, for making resolutions.  Something about the air in the fading days of summer, early days of autumn, that make me pause, slow down, reflect.  So now I reflect.  Not sure I like the reflection I just shared, but there it is.  So, where do we go from here?  Resolve to be all there?  Determine to be in the present? 

It's a time for reflection.  Actually, it's time for bed.  I'll get back to you with the resolutions, once I've reflected some more…