Roots

“Listen,”

God said,

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” I said.

“Do you hear that sound?” He repeated.

Then I heard it. Low at first, but getting louder. Rumbling, straining, cracking.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Roots,” He responded, “breaking loose and pulling out of the soil of your heart.”

Then I understood.

Hold that for a moment.

If you've ever planted a garden, you know how weeding is. If the weeds are small and new, the merest disturbance of the soil allows them to be lifted away. If they've become established and entrenched, it takes a lot of effort to pull them out. If you're like me, you pull and pull then sometimes sit down hard when the weed finally comes out in your hand.

Hold that for a moment also.

When trees are cut down, there's always a stump left. Depending on the feller, the stump might be tall or short. There are several ways of dealing with stumps. With sufficient quantities of explosive, you could remove stumps quickly and dramatically. If it's cut tall enough to provide leverage, hitting it with a bulldozer will get it right out. If patience and observation is your game, soaking it with gasoline helps burn the stump out to the little roots, perhaps taking days. Lastly, just cutting it short and letting it naturally decay, while taking the longest, is definitely the least effort. This last situation causes some complications to operations like mowing around said stump. In my parents' front yard, there is a years-old stump always surrounded with a little uncut patch of grass where the wheel-vs.-blade geometry just didn't work out.

What God had pointed out to me was the tearing and pulling of roots from my previous dating relationships, both the recently-ended one and the becoming-history one. For months, it's seemed like I've been “digging out” from my hurt, but there always seems to be an ugly stump left – particularly from dating Mary. I'd like to have my space back. I'd like to use it to grow other things. Yet it stays “stumped.” In that moment, though, God showed me that He really is going to remove the scars and lingering pain from my life. He wants to pull out the stump of my ended dating relationship.

Sometimes I want to just cut it close and leave it. After all, out of sight, out of mind, right? I think we all know that that's not really the case. Out of sight just means you'll forget about it until the next time you bump into it with the lawnmower. In fact, the lower the stump is cut, the harder it is to get leverage to remove it. Were I to be prudent, I'd leave it cut high and wait for the right process (God) to remove it entirely. Were I to be prudent, I wouldn't try to nibble it down a slice at a time. For the most part, I don't think I have pursued that unfruitful method. I think I've just cut it, left it as it lay, then waited for God and time to heal my wounds inside.

Why is this so hard to remove? Because the roots go down deep. While I was dating, I did the best I could to water our relationship, and feed it as best I knew how, and make sure it got enough sun, and all the things that make a tree grow tall and strong. Being heavily invested wrought benefits then but just pain and frustration now. It's like the little weeds compared to the big weeds – our relationship wasn't necessarily a weed, but it was established enough not to come out easily.

I'm still waiting for a time and a place to plant a tree that God will nurture for the rest of my life. A tree for shade and reading a book under, a tree for climbing and making adventures. A tree that I know I can lean on any time and all the time.

I believe that part of the reason I go through hurt now is that it's plowing the soil of my heart so that other things can be planted more deeply. I guess that's a good thing, but it's like beating my head against a wall.

In movies, you know how when the hero is climbing up the wall to a bottomless chasm, they finally pull themselves over the edge and sit for a minute to catch their breath? I feel like I reached that point a month or two ago. I'm done climbing out of the hole and ready to go climb mountains and soar with eagles again. Only problem is, I don't know know where the mountains are. I don't see intriguing and inviting majesty on my horizon. Just the hole I came from and flat prairie (maybe desert) as far as the eye can see.

In the words of Morpheus, that great prophet of pop culture, “Welcome to the desert of the real.”

As I worked this entry over in my head for some weeks, God pointed out to me the path I must follow. I have a path and a plan. Not a schedule – a schedule has due dates, and I've learned yet again that God doesn't care about my supposed deadlines. Nor does He care for my ill-intentioned attempts to hurry Him.

So I wait in His plan, in His love, and on His timing. Because in the end, that's all I can do.