Deeply Rooted
Someone once told me a story of their trip to Ireland. In the rich, wet, saturated lands of Ireland, there are trees that are hundreds of years old. They are so well watered they flourish and grow big. They have never known drought or dry seasons. Tourists would travel to see these ancient green monsters.
Yet one year of unusual weather brought winds from another direction. These winds did what was thought to be impossible–they uprooted many of those trees. What came out of the ground shocked many people.
Shallow roots.
When you think of ancient trees, centuries old, you assume that the root system must be deep and vast to support the visible structure. However, the reality is that because of the heavy rains and wet conditions, these trees had all they needed right at the surface. There was never a need for their roots to go below several feet.
When I look back on the last two decades of my life, I can see this happening so clearly. I became a believer and follower of Jesus in college and immediately became involved with a campus ministry. I was sharing my faith, helping lead worship, leading Bible studies, living and doing 24/7 life with other believers. I remember having hours long “date nights with Jesus” where I would sit and read and study. Now my busy mama heart so misses those quiet worship filled times in the corner of a coffee shop. My life, at that time, was completely immersed in Christian culture. I met my husband through that ministry and we got married a couple months after I graduated and we both worked on staff with that ministry for another seven years.
During that time, even during hard seasons, it was easy to sing worship songs. It was easy to journal and take my concerns to the Lord. Trust was a no brainer.
That season of life was like those well watered trees. Always completely saturated in life giving water. I was fed hand to mouth. Everything I needed to walk with Jesus was easily available. For many young people this is the reality, but the longer we live the more we feel the effects of living in a broken and fallen world.
When the winds came from the south and chaos moved in and settled into our home, our foundation began to rock. Illness struck our family in a way I never could have imagined. That well watered tree was easily rocked under the strong winds of hardship and suffering.
I realized that what I thought was a firm foundation was held together by shallow roots.
For a time when life was darkest, I would stand during worship at church and silently sob, unable to say the words aloud that I didn’t feel within. In public I felt like such a fake for doubting and crying out in anger in private. I cried the tears faster than my eyes could make them. I tried to visualize Jesus sitting with me on the floor of my closet, but the darkness was empty and suffocating. I was shaken and my roots were starting to show.
Like the opening chapter of the book of Ruth, I was like Naomi, who fled her home because of famine and woke up many years later in a much deeper place of drought and barrenness. She was living in a foreign land without her husband and sons. When she heard that “the Lord had visited his people and given them food” she set out to return to the land of her people (Ruth 1:6-7). Yet, she wasn’t returning the same way she left, she says “I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty” (Ruth 1:21).
Naomi was uprooted. She was experiencing a season of drought.
Experiencing drought and famine should be an expected reality of living in this broken world. It doesn’t mean that we did something wrong or that we don’t love God. Sometimes the streams of water that we plant ourselves by just dry up for a season.
Drought to a tree makes the roots stretch out to find water. As maturing women, we cannot wait for the rains to come, or hope that sitting in church or Bible study will quench the thirst of our souls. We must be actively seeking to satisfy our hydration needs.
This past summer, I looked out at our backyard to see it sprinkled with pesky dandelions and prickers. To avoid my kids hopping around the yard we went about the work of pulling up these determined weeds. Have you ever noticed that even when it’s the middle of the hottest summer and hasn’t rained in weeks, and the grass is turning brown, those resilient weeds are still green and flowering? Well as I pulled and pulled up pricker after pricker I realized why. Many weeds, like those pokey invaders, have what’s called a “taproot.” It’s a thick long root that goes straight down looking for water. Unlike other plants that fan their roots out, these weeds put all their hydration hopes in one root.
Now I don’t like to draw an analogy to us being like a weed, but there’s something to be said about the plant that withstands the summer drought. May our root be single mindedly focused on one thing for life and survival–the living water of a nourishing walk with God planted firmly in his Word. Fellowship with other sisters in Christ. Storing up God’s Word in our hearts by memorizing and meditating on His truths and promises. Preaching the gospel of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for us, to ourselves each day. The tree, as a result of that season of drought, is a lot stronger, especially to winds. When those moments come, are my roots deep? Are they stretched toward water? Or do they sit on the surface waiting for water to find them?
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is in the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when the heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” (Jer 17:7-8 italics mine)
Naomi brought Ruth back to God’s promised land where she found a redeemer who married Ruth and provided her with a son. At the end of the book, the townswomen say of the Lord, “He shall be a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age” (Ruth 4:15). God restored and nourished the empty places of Naomi’s soul. And he will do the same for those who trust in Him.
There is something to be said for being well watered and many verses call us to plant ourselves by water (Psalm 1) but maybe there’s also a call to be deeply rooted. The drought will come, famine will happen. How deep are your roots? May we be deeply rooted women of the Lord.
