(Photo taken by me October 31st, 2019 in Banner Elk, NC)

     Proverbs 27:19…”As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.”

While writing this, I’m on an annual Autumn Sabbatical that I take in the mountains of North Carolina. Each year I’ve done this trip God has put on me a word or phrase. The first year was a phrase, and it was beat into me (like, really) relentlessly up a mountain. That story is one of the first in the history of this devotional. The phrase was, “Jesus first, Jesus in the middle, Jesus last.” That happened in June, not Autumn, but it began this annual teaching. My favorite was a year when God kept impressing to me over and over, “Great things are coming,” and while on a hike up here what does the graffiti say that I discovered while on a deep hike? “Great things are coming.” It was a pretty cool moment.

This year it’s been a singular word: reflection. That’s all I’ve got to go on, and that’s a dangerous word for person who likes to write raw without edit. Reflection is a word that can be spun into cheesy town so fast, and then down that road of not saying anything while saying something we’d be traversing. I’ve already caught myself once doing that in brainstorming, as I was watching the wind blowing leaves off the trees, and then admiring as they’d flutter lightly to the ground. CHEESE TOWN WARNING. Haha. I’m not going to write fluttering leaf metaphors today. But what am I to write? What am I to learn here on this trip?

That’s the thing…I don’t know yet. I only have questions, but I certainly don’t have any answers, and that leads me to why God wants me to reflect. Just as water reflects the face, our lives are the reflection of what is truly residing in our hearts. If our lives aren’t projecting God, then God is not inside that heart. I truly appreciate that type of straightforward teaching in scripture. I’m here for 3 more full days. This one has been a rainy washout, but quite splendid in the way that I think I needed for my brain to be prepared to tackle this reflection task. I’m relaxed, happy, and now immersed in my surroundings after a long, stressful drive to get here yesterday. The rain has worked to my benefit. Tomorrow the sun shines, the cold comes, and up the mountain I shall go. In reflection mode.

My life, in general, is in a major transition, as one daughter prepares to finish college, and one prepares to leave home and go to college. My days of full time Daddy status are over. That purpose has been successfully completed come June 2020. What’s next? It’s a huge question in my heart and that will continue. I can only surmise that the reason God has given me the word – reflection – is to help me choose the right path…his path…as the doors and opportunities open.

So, we shall reflect…about the past, the present, and what may still be to come. And we will look for God in it all, because the only thing that matters about any of this? Is my life projecting Him? Yes or No.

How about your life? If God asked you to reflect on your life, would you be able to find Him? Seems to be an important question.

Gary Abernathy