Deep Roots

"Look at those trees blow."

The storm was rampaging into the backyard with violence.

"How can they even stay upright, without just being ripped in half? "

We stood watching the storm come with suddenness and force, the wind tossing branches and leaves in swirling madness. 

"Deep roots.  That's why God makes them with deep roots."

Because it's only the one's with the deepest roots that weather the storm. 

In the aftermath, we see many without deep roots, lying broken, splintered remains.  And those without power and food and in sweltering heat don't weather the storm well either. 

And when the storms of life blow we need deep roots. 

Roots planted by the streams of water.  Water that gives Life.  Living Water. 

Because it's only the Living Water that makes us thirst no more.  We drink and drink again and again but still we thirst. 
And without that Living Water we get dry. 

Like the trees in this neighborhood, dry and thirsting for water. 

Our leaves turn brown around the edges just when they should be glistening green in new summer. 

Brown.  Dying.  For lack of water. 

And then the storms come. 

They blow and rip at our lives, edges curled up, crisping.

And lives of people are splintered in the aftermath, breaking because they could not bend enough in the blowing of the wind. 

Breaking because they were empty when they could have been full.  Breaking instead of bending because they were much too dry when the storms blew through. 

Oh how I need to be planted deeply in that stream.  Cool water running, running.

Living Water filling, making green with it's fullness. 

Because that wind, it's gonna blow again.  And it's the bending that is needed, ever bending lower so I won't break. 

We made it through this storm, only 42 hours without power, and we are thankful.  But the storms are going to blow again, and I need to be full, green, bending.