When I was in college, I heard a really cool story about a tree.  A person planted a certain seed of a tree in the ground and watered it faithfully for a long time. But there was no sign of anything growing.  Days went by, weeks, months…but nothing was happening…and they began to think that nothing was growing.  Ready to give up, one day they finally noticed something beginning to grow out of the ground.  It was the tree!!  Over the next year, this tree just shot up tall, healthy, and beautiful!  But during that time when they thought that nothing was growing, what they didn’t see was that the roots were actually growing deep into the earth!  This type of tall beautiful tree had to have it’s root system in place first,  so that it could support the tree once it shot quickly out of the ground!  Deep roots had to be established to support such a tall tree…otherwise if a storm came, that tree would fall over.  It wasn’t that nothing was happening…it was that everything was happening!!

I can think of different times throughout my life where it has felt like nothing was happening according to how I thought things should happen.  I remember how easy it was to get discouraged and feel like giving up…because I saw nothing happening!! To be honest, there were many times that I did give up when I shouldn’t have.   But, looking back on those times now, I see there were unseen “roots” growing that needed to be in place to be able to support me if/when a storm were to come.

And a storm did come.

One morning while driving to work, I clearly heard God speak to my heart, “You are stronger than you think.”  That was it.  It came out of nowhere, I wasn’t sure why He had spoken it to me, but I knew it was Him, and so I tucked it away in my heart.  Less than two years later, the “storm” hit.  Remembering those earlier words from that drive, I found myself suddenly clinging to them.  I then understood why He had spoken them to me and for what purpose…and I felt the strength that came from them.  “God, YOU are my strength…and I cling to you.  I am surviving this only because of YOU.”

However, it was in that storm that I was reminded of God’s goodness to me in the “root-growing” seasons.  When a dark voice was telling me to “forget God…He doesn’t care about you…” I was given the strength to push it away and run to God’s incredible love for me.  Bless those “root growing” times…because I remembered that it was in those times when I’d memorized Bible verses.  A simple thing to do, but now in the eye of the storm,  those same verses suddenly became VERY REAL. Those verses were God’s voice to me now in the storm!!  Talk about lifesavers!!  Songs I had learned during my “root growing” about God’s love for me, now came flooding into my mind.  Every time I felt like giving up, something from deep down in my roots brought me back up again.  I was knocked down for sure, but not dead…apparently I had grown some roots without even knowing it.  Thank God!  The storm eventually passed, and I now live to tell about it. 🙂

Things don’t always go according to my plan…and that’s okay…I’m finding that God’s plan is always better than mine anyway.  I know there are roots growing that I can’t see.  My plan is to water them!   I want to be like that tree in Psalm 1:2, “…instead you thrill to God’s Word, you chew on Scripture day and night.  You’re a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month, never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.”

Growing roots…and surviving storms…like tall, beautiful trees. 🙂  From a “tree story” I heard once in college…to here. Who knew! 🙂

“So you’ll go out in joy, you’ll be led into a whole and complete life.  The mountains and hills will lead the parade, bursting with song.  All the trees of the forest will join the procession, exuberant with applause.  No more thistles, but giant sequoias, no more thorn bushes, but stately pines…”  Isaiah 55:12-13