Uprooted

This weekend Matt and I re-potted some of my plants. One of them is a beautiful ZZ Plant our house church gave us the day we moved into our new house. It has doubled in size (maybe even more) since they gave it to us, and recently I learned these plants can grow to be huge, so I knew it was time to re-pot it.

When it came time to getting it out of the current pot, it didn’t want to budge. We tried soaking it, so the soil would be loose; we tried using a knife to loosen the edges; it wouldn’t come out. Matt finally got a long, flat blade from the garage, to loosen all the way down the edges, all the way around the plant (the blade went down farther than the knife). After he was finished the plant finally came out, but in the process of loosening it with the blade, the blade had also cut off a bunch of the roots. I was so sad when we lifted the plant up, and I saw all the roots that had been severed in the process. I knew it meant the plant would probably die, or at least part of it would die.

While I was cleaning up the mess of all the re-potting, I looked over at my plant and my heart was sad for it, but then the Lord started speaking to me about the process of what had just happened. There are times in our life where we are planted in a season–and we’re comfortable there, we’re even growing–but that place we have been planted is holding us back from our full potential.

It might seem like we’re growing well, but we don’t understand that there’s more.

And I’ve lived through this, I know what this plant is going through because I have been happy, healthy and growing, but the Lord uprooted me and planted me somewhere else, because He knew I had even more potential for growth, and the season I was in, wasn’t allowing my roots to grow as deep as they could.

And it was painful.

So painful.

There are days when it’s still painful, all these years later.

I’ve only recently discovered there is even more damage to parts of me, then I was aware of before. When those roots were cut off and friends, family members, a house I loved, and a marriage I thought was amazing, all went away, it’s a pain I thought I might not live through.

But God in all His loving kindness, knew better.

He knew there was inner strength I had yet to tap into, He knew I needed to loose those roots in order to grow more, and He knew there was so much more potential for me to grow even bigger, healthier, and deeper rooted in Him than I could even imagine.

It has been three and a half years since the process started, and about two years since the last roots were cut off.

At first I definitely shriveled up. I felt like part of me was dying and I’d never be the same, and it’s true, I never will be the same. But what the Lord showed me in the “death” was His incredible love, and that when I felt hopeless, defeated, and like I’d lost my way, I could put my confidence in the Him, the One who gave me the promise for a better future, and I could tap into His faithfulness (Hebrews 11:11).

I honestly can’t say I would have asked for this, but what I can say is that I’m beginning to see regrowth. I’m beginning to see there is more room for me to spread my roots deeper, and do things I’ve never done before, trust in ways I never thought I could, and find joy again, in areas I thought were lost.

But, as I mentioned before, the Lord only recently showed me there is still healing that needs to happen, roots that need to regrow. There is a root that was severed, and I’m just now seeing, it is still very damaged where the cut took place. And truthfully, it’s scary, I don’t know if I want to give attention to that root because it still feels raw, and I don’t know if I can handle any more pain.

And that’s just where I’m at.

I know I will look back in six months, a year, maybe even longer, and see it was worth it to expose that severed root, to put all my strength into growing deeper, so I can flourish even more, but right now I feel a lot like my plant, uprooted.

But I choose to trust that God, in all His graciousness, will show me the way, and once again I will be in awe of His healing powers, and hopefully someday my roots will grow so deep that I’m able to tap into something beyond my wildest dreams.

Fix your heart on the promises of God and you will be secure, feasting on His faithfulness. Make God the utmost delight and pleasure of your life and He will provide for you what you desire the most. Give God the right to direct your life, and as you trust Him along the way you’ll find He pulled it off perfectly!” Psalm 37:3b-5