Unexpected Roots

I come from a family where roots run down deep, generations back all from the same place.  I grew up 5 miles from both grandmas, and spent almost every single weekend at a family birthday party or confirmation or baptism.

I was raised on extended family life.

I watched my parents in their ministry of the here and now, always beautifying and growing their little corner of the world.  It was small and familiar and stable, and it is what allowed them to bring children with incredibly difficult, unstable lives into our family.  As my mom said late one night, as she holds my nephew asleep in the dark while we talk on the living room couches, "It was those roots that gave us that freedom."

It was what I always assumed my life would be- stable.  Move away to college, then come back.  Get married, have babies, and raise them in the same town, church, school, house I brought them home to.

But.

That hasn't been God's plan for my life so far, and it seems it will not be, at least for a long while more. Twenty-one moves in nine years remind me that life has not gone as I planned, and I am not in control.

I trust God's plan, even if I don't understand it.

God has been teaching me for the last few years about roots, and what they mean to Him.  They are not attached to time or place or anything else of this world; those are foundations of sand.  He is teaching me that He is the only safe place to attach and dwell and draw Living Water.  Geographical stability is not lasting; I am learning to drink life from the Eternal.

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Linking to 5 Minute Friday at Gypsy Mama.