Roots
Hello wonderful friends. It's been far too long I'm afraid. Sorry for keeping you hanging like that. It's just that sometimes I can barely process my own thoughts enough to get through the day and by the time I've processed those thoughts, there's a new batch waiting to be thought through themselves, leaving no time to write any of them down. And even if I did have the time to write them down, I'd be in such a confused hurry that they would be nothing but a jumbled mess that no one but myself would understand. (In case you haven't noticed, there's a little bit of that jumbledness left over that seems to be spilling itself into this as well, but I will continue on in spite of this.) So, while I apologize that it's been so long since I've written, I'll just tell you right up front that you wouldn't have wanted to read anything I'd written in the past few months if I had written it. And that is, as usual, because God and I hadn't been as close lately. And therefore life has been substantially more confusing and complicated. Because any sanity I might have is a direct result of Him.
So, now that I have cleared my throat, I'm ready to begin. :)
A few years back, when we were visiting our relatives in Minnesota, I read a quote on the bathroom counter of my cousin's house that said, "The greatest two things you can give your children are roots and wings." Or something like that. I remember taking that "roots" metaphor much farther than the author of that quote probably intended it to go. I imagined myself as a single, small flower growing in the lovely garden of my life. I then imagined huge hands coming along and tearing me out of the ground, and carrying me, broken roots dangling wildly in the open air, to another garden. Then I was replanted in this new garden where my poor, broken roots began to grow and spread again in this unfamiliar soil.
I imagined this happening again and again and again, and each time I was torn from the ground I left behind pieces of my roots in the most recent garden that I left behind. Each time I became weaker and more frail until my roots were scattered throughout countless gardens and I myself was left looking wilted, parched, and alone in a garden of strangers. And I couldn't help but miss all those roots that I had left behind.
That was the metaphor that quickly ran through my head as I read this quote. My family had not given me roots, I thought to myself. They had simply allowed them to be torn out again and again and again, as we moved from place to new place to new place. Instead of giving me a garden to grow strong in, where my roots could run deep, deep down into the richest soil, they had given me a life of constant uprooting and replanting. Uprooting and replanting. And the result was a flower that didn't have any roots at all. A flower that had little to offer the gardens she was planted in, because she only had weak and broken roots with which to draw water and life.
That was three years ago. For awhile after I read that quote and adopted that metaphor as my own, I clung to that picture of myself. I accepted the fact that I was that broken flower, and that all the military moves I'd been forced to go through were the cause of this brokenness. I accepted the fact that I was homeless and rootless and that I didn't have anywhere to belong, like all my friends did. I didn't have a garden to call my own. After all, I'd only been allowed to make shallow roots in many gardens, instead of deep roots in just one.
But something happened between then and now that changed my mind. Something that changed my perspective on my past and therefore changed my perspective on myself.
I met my flower pot.
(As I'm sitting here writing this, I'm laughing as I wonder how Jesus feels about being compared to a flower pot. But I think He's probably getting as much of a kick out of this metaphor as I am. So I'm going to stick with it. Besides, He looks at my heart, and He can see the love that I have for Him in there. And that's all He really cares about.)
Where was I? Oh yes, I'd just met my "flower pot", Jesus. And although I've been getting to know Him now for about two years, I hadn't realized how He fit into my flower metaphor until about three weeks ago. Because three weeks ago we went back to Minnesota. And, once again, I saw that quote on my cousin's bathroom counter. And I remembered that broken metaphor that I'd painted years ago.
Standing there at that bathroom counter, staring at myself in that bathroom mirror, I saw a smile spread across my face. And I laughed to myself right there in the bathroom. Because I realized that my metaphor was different now. Now that I'd met my flower pot.
Because now I imagined myself as a strong and growing flower in a beautiful, strong, and secure flower pot. I imagined that now, when the hands came to tear me from the soil and bring me to another new garden, they stopped, and picked up the whole flower pot instead. And then they set me down, safe and secure, in a new and beautiful garden. But this time, I still had all my roots. Because they were planted right there in that flower pot. Right where they belonged.
And I realized that this is the way it was truly meant to be. That once I met Jesus and accepted Him as my Savior and Lord, He became my everything, and therefore my home as well. I belong where He is and no where else. Where He goes, I go. And where I goes, He will go also. Because His soil is where I belong. And nowhere else.
And now I realize that this whole moving lifestyle that I've lived has been a huge, amazing plan of God's to grow me closer to Him. A plan that now helps keep my perspective on life right. Because anytime someone asks me where I'm from, and I don't really know what to tell them, it reminds me that this place where I'm living now, is not my home. Because I'm a potted plant in a garden world. :) haha. And as long as I'm on this earth, (no matter what garden I may be in at the time), I will never truly be home.
No, belonging must be put off for a while longer now.
"And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ." Romans 1:6
So, now that I have cleared my throat, I'm ready to begin. :)
A few years back, when we were visiting our relatives in Minnesota, I read a quote on the bathroom counter of my cousin's house that said, "The greatest two things you can give your children are roots and wings." Or something like that. I remember taking that "roots" metaphor much farther than the author of that quote probably intended it to go. I imagined myself as a single, small flower growing in the lovely garden of my life. I then imagined huge hands coming along and tearing me out of the ground, and carrying me, broken roots dangling wildly in the open air, to another garden. Then I was replanted in this new garden where my poor, broken roots began to grow and spread again in this unfamiliar soil.
I imagined this happening again and again and again, and each time I was torn from the ground I left behind pieces of my roots in the most recent garden that I left behind. Each time I became weaker and more frail until my roots were scattered throughout countless gardens and I myself was left looking wilted, parched, and alone in a garden of strangers. And I couldn't help but miss all those roots that I had left behind.
That was the metaphor that quickly ran through my head as I read this quote. My family had not given me roots, I thought to myself. They had simply allowed them to be torn out again and again and again, as we moved from place to new place to new place. Instead of giving me a garden to grow strong in, where my roots could run deep, deep down into the richest soil, they had given me a life of constant uprooting and replanting. Uprooting and replanting. And the result was a flower that didn't have any roots at all. A flower that had little to offer the gardens she was planted in, because she only had weak and broken roots with which to draw water and life.
That was three years ago. For awhile after I read that quote and adopted that metaphor as my own, I clung to that picture of myself. I accepted the fact that I was that broken flower, and that all the military moves I'd been forced to go through were the cause of this brokenness. I accepted the fact that I was homeless and rootless and that I didn't have anywhere to belong, like all my friends did. I didn't have a garden to call my own. After all, I'd only been allowed to make shallow roots in many gardens, instead of deep roots in just one.
But something happened between then and now that changed my mind. Something that changed my perspective on my past and therefore changed my perspective on myself.
I met my flower pot.
(As I'm sitting here writing this, I'm laughing as I wonder how Jesus feels about being compared to a flower pot. But I think He's probably getting as much of a kick out of this metaphor as I am. So I'm going to stick with it. Besides, He looks at my heart, and He can see the love that I have for Him in there. And that's all He really cares about.)
Where was I? Oh yes, I'd just met my "flower pot", Jesus. And although I've been getting to know Him now for about two years, I hadn't realized how He fit into my flower metaphor until about three weeks ago. Because three weeks ago we went back to Minnesota. And, once again, I saw that quote on my cousin's bathroom counter. And I remembered that broken metaphor that I'd painted years ago.
Standing there at that bathroom counter, staring at myself in that bathroom mirror, I saw a smile spread across my face. And I laughed to myself right there in the bathroom. Because I realized that my metaphor was different now. Now that I'd met my flower pot.
Because now I imagined myself as a strong and growing flower in a beautiful, strong, and secure flower pot. I imagined that now, when the hands came to tear me from the soil and bring me to another new garden, they stopped, and picked up the whole flower pot instead. And then they set me down, safe and secure, in a new and beautiful garden. But this time, I still had all my roots. Because they were planted right there in that flower pot. Right where they belonged.
And I realized that this is the way it was truly meant to be. That once I met Jesus and accepted Him as my Savior and Lord, He became my everything, and therefore my home as well. I belong where He is and no where else. Where He goes, I go. And where I goes, He will go also. Because His soil is where I belong. And nowhere else.
And now I realize that this whole moving lifestyle that I've lived has been a huge, amazing plan of God's to grow me closer to Him. A plan that now helps keep my perspective on life right. Because anytime someone asks me where I'm from, and I don't really know what to tell them, it reminds me that this place where I'm living now, is not my home. Because I'm a potted plant in a garden world. :) haha. And as long as I'm on this earth, (no matter what garden I may be in at the time), I will never truly be home.
No, belonging must be put off for a while longer now.
"And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ." Romans 1:6
I can't imagine the toll all that moving must take on someone, especially a young person who is trying to find their identity. Many people find their identity in where they live and the culture around them but believers often find that they don't fit in there. They feel like something is missing because they can't connect to the way that secular society does. The problem is that we can't root our identity in where we are, it's rooted in who we are, more like who God is through us. Even from a distance I can see God is teaching you so much and can't wait to hear about some of it in person:)
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