The Long Journey Backward

When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his
relatives, the Israelites. Acts 7:23

There comes a time for many of us when our heart murmurs softly to us that we need to return to our roots. We feel a deep urge within our heart to go back and explore connections that were part of our formation or part of our shared heritage. His ancestors had not raised Moses--he had been cared for by a princess in a palace far from those who were a part of his own hidden DNA. Yet, when he felt
that there was more to him than what he had come to know about himself in the king's house, he began the long journey backward into his lost past. His voyage into a piece of his story he had not previously known became a defining moment for him and for his people, and the course of his life was changed.

Returning to our own history does not always turn us inside out, but it does fill us out. It brings to life the networks and webs that make us into who we are. We are given an extra set of eyes and ears to try to make sense out of the particular and peculiar patterns of life that are uniquely ours. We may want to avoid going back in time to wander through the unknown caves of our own history because we fear what we may find there. But when once we hear the call of our heart to begin the adventure, and we bravely place our foot into the darkness, we are amazed to find the tale that unfolds awakens us to parts of ourselves that could have remained covered for the whole of our lives. And, oh, what a loss that would be.

O God, let me not stammer in fear at the closed doors of my past.
Let me traverse the unknown and find there the wonder of my humanity.

--from "Signposts: Daily Devotions" by Renée Miller