Strong Roots

To quote a friend of mine, family can be a “tricky thing”. As time marches on, everyone spreads out, moves away and begins their own lives. The more involved we become with our own branch of the family tree, we end up communicating with the other branches less and less. We all have the tendency to make relationships work simply out of convenience, and sometimes end up unintentionally neglecting relationships that require more effort on our part and by default we drift apart.

I am thankful that although most of the above is true about my own family, we still have the ability to show grace and love when the situation calls for it. This speaks volumes about the very roots of our family tree.

As much as I would like to say I am my own person, and my parents and even my grandparents had nothing to do with my personality traits, that would obviously be false. We would be foolish when evaluating ourselves to not factor our heritage into the equation.

The fact my family has the ability to put our lives on pause on a moment’s notice and hold each other up when needed, says our family’s roots were grounded with just the right dose of love, tenacity, and grace. Not that our family is perfect by any means, but my grandparents clearly did something right and I would like to think they passed some important values on to me.

My grandma was a complex mixture of faith, spirited tenaciousness, tenderness, sassiness and love. She loved hard and I certainly would not have put it past her to throw a punch at anyone who would dare to speak against one of her children or grandchildren. She never let anyone walk over her, she always knew exactly what she wanted and made it happen. She showered her love on us by lemon sugar cookies, always-on-time birthday cards, and overnight stays at her house. Her love language, just as my own, was without question acts of service.

Today, as I was bossing around a crowd of people who are all taller than me, (something I seem to naturally be good at) my grandpa joked with me and told me I was acting like my grandma. And it’s true, I was, and I was totally fine with it.

My grandma was not without faults, but she obviously did something right when raising my mom and uncles.

I hope and pray that my children and grandchildren will be able to say the same thing about me. I pray I create strong roots so my children will always have each other and continue to pass on my grandparent’s values onto their own children and grandchildren.

What a legacy my grandparents have established. I am thankful for their influence in my life.

Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray.
Proverbs 22:6

And that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.
Ephesians 3:17