Roots For My Kids

I couldn’t sleep last night. My mind exploded with excitement and ideas and what-ifs and details that no human can possibly keep track of. Seriously, it’s like a fireworks show in my brain. Big, huge fireworks.

We leave for Germany in tee-minus 8 weeks. We’ll live there for a year. The move has hung in the fringe since last August, though never truly defined until yesterday. We’ve been living between the where-we-are and the where-we-know-we’re-going. And, I’ll tell you, it’s a strange place to live. Leary to commit to anything in any long-term sort of way because we didn’t think we’d be here past November. Then January. Then February or March. And now, well, we have a date. We leave June 5 to live like Germans for one year.

Twelve months of life-altering, upside-down living and figuring out how to do stuff we don’t even know that we don’t know how to do. We won’t grow roots there, because we will always know we’ll be leaving. Not deep roots, anyway. I imagine that to some degree, we’re going to feel like our roots are dangling in mid-air, because we won’t have immediate access to the things of life to which we are so very accustomed. We won’t just get to stop at Wendy’s for a frosty when someone gets a shot or a strep test. I won’t get to meet my favorite people  for lunch when I need some girl time, or I just don’t have it in me to make lunch.

I got up out of bed last night after laying there for an hour-and-a-half wondering when the fireworks would slow down so I could shut my eyes and ignore them for a while. I wandered to my children’s rooms, watched them sleep in the dark. I wondered about the details surrounding them and this move and how hard it will sometimes be for them. And I prayed.

I prayed for their friendships and their safety. I prayed about their health and the schooling they’ll get while we are over in upside-down land. But mostly I prayed that Almighty God would use this to make them strong in Him. To make them who He created them to be.

I made my way to the couch, Bible and journal in hand, and sat down with it before opening the computer to for the tired I needed to find. I opened to the words I read about fourteen hours earlier. Blessed. Trusts. LORD. Confidence.

But that’s as far as I had read until last night, on my couch, after I asked God to help each of my kids to find their hope in God alone. To lead them to find their confidence only in the One Who can give them any real sustenance. Then I saw the next few words, and my heart literally skipped a beat as I realized the truth that God had directed me to pray for my daughters, for my husband, for myself.

Did you catch that? The person who knows that his or her only hope, the only anything truly worthy of his or her entire confidence, that person is like a tree planted in the exact perfect spot. Like a big strong tree that knows the best place to root itself is smack next to the stream. And the best place to root ourselves is right next to the true Living Water. Solid and firm in our place near Him.

If we plant ourselves right next to Jesus Christ, our hope and confidence rooted in Him alone, then we have nothing to fear. Nothing.

Because the only worthwhile place to dig real roots is near real water.

And this is what my children need to learn. Me too. We need to stop looking for life in what is not water. We need to stop looking to pretend-water to quench our spirit thirst. And somehow, I believe that God is going to use every ounce of that truth to teach my children, and me, to root our hope and our confidence only in Him.

But it’s kind of a hard thing to pray for my kids. Because I know it will require ripping out the misplaced roots they’ve started planting. And yet, I sit here believing it’s what God wants for my kids. And this year in Germany will have a significant impact in that regard. And goodness knows I want to, I need to, pray more for my kids. I need to pray more of God’s Word for my kids.

So I was thinking. What if I commit to praying this for my kids for this Germany adventure? And what if you commit to praying for your kids as you believe God leads you? Wanna’? C’mon…pleeeeease.