Life Uprooted, Hope Planted.
March is ending, and in my mind’s eye, I see clods of grass and earth clinging to black heels: life uprooted, torn right out, my soles aerating the lawn stretching from the car to her graveside.
A year’s passed since we buried my sister, a year since the unexpected loss that came in the midst of all our calculated transitions. And my heart has ached and I have come to the end of myself this year. I have wept, shaken my fist at heaven, appalled at the lack of redemption, even while it germinated in my own faithless heart.
In her death, she gave me the gift of discovering the dark places of my heart; the shock and finality of her slipping into eternity – and my inability to cope – exposing all my people pleasing, judging, guilt-driven motives, and pulling me, driving me, compelling me towards home. Home.
And, yes, I have moved back home this year, our calculated transition, despite all my life’s longing and pursuit of moving far and away. I have come back. And I have said the submissive yes on the outside, and kicked and screamed silent within, fearing the death of dreams, all the while living the reality of disappointment – mostly with myself. I have had to come home to learn again, always, again and again, that my home, my dwelling has little to do with location and much to do with belonging.
He is my home: to abide, to dwell, to know His very presence and be satisfied in Him. This is not a new idea to me. These are revelations I have heard and believed, truths I have spoken and taught, planted in others’ lives. I can recall with clarity the day He whispered it straight to my heart: You were made to be the woman at the foot of the cross.
But as grief has exposed my deep disbelief, and stillness has brought light to brokenness, I am rediscovering a foundation firmer than my own fabrications, a stillness sweeter than my own striving. I’ve seen the dark, ugly of this heart, and am learning to breath easy, discovering I am loved, deeply loved, in spite of it (because, really, the only one I was ever hiding it from was myself). No hiding, no impressing necessary: my life, lost in Christ.
So March comes to a close, and as the seasons change, I mark a year gone by. I prepare to prune and uproot, plant and wait in preparation for new growth outside, and inside I am quieted and grateful, humbled by the slow, steady redemption budding here. I am home.
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I’m grateful for Ann’s words, compelling me to write and to risk, and for the many women in my life (past, present and future), like those of SheSpeaks, connecting the hearts of women to the heart of our Father God, and urging me to do the same: a broken vessel, glory, I pray, spilling out. I count it joy to sojourn with you. Thank you.