A Year of Being Rooted
December 31, 2020
At the beginning of the year, I chose a word to learn from throughout 2020. Many online dictionaries and varied institutions and societies select a word at the end of the year to summarize what they deem most important or most thematic in a year. Instead, I choose a word at the beginning of the year. I think it's so much more exciting, because you never now what the next year is going to hold. Choosing a word to give your year color is like a prayer, or a prophecy for what your year is going to hold. At the beginning of this year, I chose "rooted" as my word.
I don't really know what led me to pick rooted as my word for 2020, but it has been perfect. More than anything, this year was a time of being uprooted. We were all taken out of our comfort zone in some way, as many of our plans were cancelled or postponed. We had to trust the Lord every single day, to keep us safe, to heal us or our loved ones, to protect our business or livelihood, and much more. Personally, I was also uprooted in the sense that I moved countries and started living very far away from my family and community I grew up with.
However, this "uprooting" helped me to become much more rooted in the things that really mattered. Whenever plants grow too big, they need to be repotted into a place where they will have the freedom to grow unrestrained. In the same way, although the places where I had become rooted were not at all bad, they would not have supported my growth in the way that being at Ouachita and far away from my "flower pot" has. My roots are not at Ouachita Baptist University, though, or in the United States. Being uprooted allowed me to extend my roots and place my trust in God wholeheartedly. I could not be where I am without all of the miracles He has done. He has shown me that He is so much bigger than I ever thought. He is so worthy of my trust. He is the soil where I will be rooted for the rest of my life.
I have realized that being rooted is an everyday thing. A tree's growth is slow. At first, the roots grow much faster than the trunk and the branches. Every single day, as the leaves soak up the sun, they prioritize building up roots. As the water trickles down, growth happens day by day, until the tree becomes so rooted that the roots get thick as large branches, and develop root hairs to absorb the minerals all around it. It becomes almost impossible to pull up a tree that is so rooted.
So after a year of living my life through the lens of the word rooted, I realize that it I want rootedness in Christ to become a prayer for my life. May I be like the Psalm 1 tree, planted by streams of water, who bears fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.
In the very last night of 2020, I invite you to choose a word for 2021. Ask the Lord what He wants to teach you, and choose a word in faith. I guarantee that by the end of the year, it will have taught you so much.
I pray that in this coming year, you will be able to see the Lord mving in such great ways, in your life and the life of those around you. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.
I encourage you to give thanks to the Lord, for His love endures forever (2 Cr. 2021). Let us enter this new year with gratitude and awe of the Lord. He is so good! Let us consider our days this year as a rehearsal of life, a tiny, 365-long sample of life. And as we wake up in 2021, let us remember how we could have done better and lived a life worthy of our heavenly calling. Happy New Years, dear friends!
Yours truly,
Isa