uprooted

I am so unaware of my dependency and my deep need until something shifts in life. If it seems like I can handle my load just fine, I need only to wait until one of my main things that I was leaning on gets pulled out from under me. It could be a system I'm relying on (government, church, etc.), it could be a job, it could be a person, it could be well-laid plans. Then I'm suddenly very aware that I was leaning on it and also painfully aware that it's no longer there. So it has been with a transition we're going through.

The first step to going through a transition well is to recognize that you're going through a transition, and I hadn't. I mean, in some sense I have - I have been telling people that we are going through a transition. But I think in my head it was just another one of the same little hops we've been doing for the past few years - as our self-employment and church ministry involvement ebbed and flowed, things would move and shake a little bit but then mostly level out. I was viewing this transition as one of those same little moves - not as the giant leap that it is. A friend texted me the other day and told me that how I am feeling makes sense, because to her it seems very clear that this job change is a complete 180 from what we were doing before. I hadn't identified that yet, which is part of the problem.

Mid-transition, I grasp for anywhere at all to put down roots. I have been uprooted, and I am kicking and screaming and desperately looking around for somewhere to re-plant. This takes on so many different forms for me - brings up a lot of identity issues, makes me feel uncertain in every step that I take, and most of all, tears me away from all threads of self-dependency stemming from my previous experiences or abilities. I would have a strong tendency to put down new roots too soon in order to feel more stable and exit survival mode, but at the same time it's not always the wrong thing to do. Putting down new roots somewhere at some point is the way through the transition. No plants will grow mid-air, and I'm a plant in this case. Needing some water and nutrients that are nowhere to be found without being in the soil.

But I guess maybe part of the problem is that I'm grasping for the wrong soil. Jesus is soil from which I can never be uprooted. And maybe my misplaced identity is part of the reason I'm wildly flailing. That the place to put down my roots is in Him and not in any other thing we do or say or be is something I already know... but I just have to keep re-learning. And that is the thing about transition - is that it's just all about being willing to humbly re-learn.

Titus prayed for supper the other night and he thanked God that our day worked out. There were a lot of bumps in our day and the kids were aware of maybe 20% of them, so his thanking God for working out our day even with that little awareness was touching. God does work things out.

So being uprooted is uncomfortable. But it makes me deeply aware of my need and dependency and where my identity really is and where it really needs to be and there's just a lot to be said for that.