Rootedness.

I got a couple of books for my birthday.  Well, a few, actually (good old Amazon wish list!), but I'm not going to mention all of them...
One was this:

Yes, I asked for it.  (I do have a gardening blog you know...)  And thinking about it, it's basically telling you how to make plants grow.  For seeds, you're looking to make sure they shoot and root.  For other types of planting, you're doing the same thing - you plant a twig in the ground, and hope it will sprout roots.  When it's sprouted roots, it feeds, and when it feeds, it grows.  Simplistic, maybe, but pretty much how it works.  Without the roots, the twig can only last as long as its own stored energy allows.  It actually works though. 

I also got these two:

And they're about a similar thing, just in a different realm.  We move from the garden into our lives, and the same need for rootedness appears.  We can only last so long without roots, and these books (I haven't finished reading them yet) are painting a picture of a rooted life.  That's a real challenge to me.  I often remember the phrase, "if the grass is greener on the other side, start watering your own".  But the grass on the other side still looks SO GOOD.  I mean, what do they do to it to get it that lush?

But maybe the challenge for me is to have the courage to root myself where I am now.  To accept that, at least for now, my understanding of God's will is that THIS is where I belong, and I need to put down roots here.  Not just as a sort of stop-gap, but with the intention to remain.  It kinda makes sense too, because I'm more likely to be of use here if I'm assuming I'll stay, than if I'm assuming I'll go.

Work of art.