cement

a friend shared this post with me the other day -

"i got this tattoo back during a time where life was storybook reality, a seemingly silver screen type of tale. it was the calm before the storm. and suddenly, the ground shook. but it turns out, in the uprooting of a life, you can learn that all along you weren't planted in any soil. instead, you were planted in concrete - you were sturdy, but you couldn't grow. these days, it sits clever on my arm - a loud statement, but a quiet promise - to be always clinging to bigger ways of being who & how i am. always ready for God to pluck me out of fake soil i plant myself in and bring me back to ground that will grow me." (thanks @kathhhgrifff for the wise words and @amanduhbrowning for sharing them with me)

and this concept of being planted in fake soil rocked and rattled me. this whole life experience - of moving to a foreign country, moving to a new state, moving to a new career, moving to a new place, always moving. i had always described this feeling, this urge to be uprooted, to move, to plant fledgling roots, to never stay too still as change. as development. as advancement. as improvement. as evolution. as healthy.

but this is the first time i've considered that some, a few, of the places i've planted myself and tried to grow - were not conducive to growing. they were cement. they were a desert.

they were not for living things.