A Little Journey

Why would a middle-aged mother of six leave her home and walk up Maine's U.S. highway all alone? " I was not running away, " she writes. "I was searching for something lost. but found instead something that had been with me right along." Who am I? she questioned. Who is June Strong anyway? Mother, author, wife, speaker, homemaker, daughter of God... will the real June Strong please stand up? "I went on this trip," she writes "determined to unpeel the accumulated layers of conventional religion and see if there was anything underneath." " I wanted a new heart." And so she walked and thought, paused to read and ponder. Who am I? Why am I? Does my value lie in my role as Christian, as a mother, a wife, a writer? Why aren't I more content? Why do I get so frustrated, so depressed? And so she, this well known, much sought after Christian writer, left her family on a hike along the coast of Maine. She thought she was going home. But was she? Walk along with her. Be silent with her and think the larger thoughts that too often are pushed aside by hectic schedules and the everyday pressures that never end. "One must keep blossoming toward his God-center like the Queen Anne's lace," she discovered. "Leaving, changing, growing, giving, and daring to be oneself, but always with love." I cannot read this most personal journal without unbidden tears. It touches a chord deep inside, in some secret place that I hardly dare admit exists. Her dreams, her fears, her frustration, and her hope are part of every man and woman. It might be well for all of us to take a little journey. - Penny Estes Wheeler.