The Joy in Losing Roots

When I looked at all my belongings packed up in the back of my dad’s truck one month ago, I remember feeling a numbing, unbelieving tidal wave of shock coming towards me. As I drove behind him along the stretch of 5 freeway back home, I didn’t cry. I didn’t lose it. I just felt…dead. Like San Diego was this weird life force I couldn’t find anywhere else, a place of comfort and sunshine and kindness I would never be able to have again.

We got to Huntington, and in one blurry day I unpacked everything I owned, all 15 boxes of clothes and photographs and books and final papers.

Yes, I had allowed myself to become rooted for the first time of my life.

Yes, I was now being torn from the ground.

For the entirety of my young-adult life, I had vowed I would never let myself get comfortable, I would never have to deal with painful goodbyes—and I had failed miserably the moment I ran alongside the Scripps trails overlooking La Jolla shores, the Thursday night I walked into Upper Room. But as I put my boxes of nostalgia in their new space, I certainly wasn’t going to allow myself to feel the aftershocks of my rebellion.

But memories don’t disappear with the speed of ripping off a band-aid. Life doesn’t work that way. Your brain doesn’t purge itself in catharsis, your heart doesn’t let go of the happiest years it’s had. And for a while I was left wondering if all of that, the debilitating comfort and routine I found 100 miles south of here was a pursuit worthwhile.

Almost everyday this past year I made my way down to Bird Rock, and I’d thank God endlessly in my journal for having me come here. How did I end up in a place of such incomparable beauty, filled with such incredible people? It was certainly not by my own accord, as my selfish and narcissistic tendencies should’ve landed me anywhere but here. Nevertheless, I am grateful that I never—not for a single, fleeting moment—took advantage of life in La Jolla.

I’m trying to do the same in Orange County, but it’s not the same. My family is here, which is the area’s overwhelming redeeming quality. Crystal Cove is still here, which evokes memories of my long afternoons under the Windansea sun. However, I can’t seem to get past everything else. Walking around in South Coast Plaza, trying to find some cheap cargo pants for Thailand, all I could feel was a constant, clamoring desire to escape. The perfectly sculpted women with their off-the-runway Tory Burch purses and collagen-plumped lips. The two-hundred dollar blouses, clicking of Louboutin heels on Italian ivory marble floors, children scuttling alongside their moms with frappaccinos in their little hands. This place is truly a bizarre anomaly, a city filled empty mansions on the sea, of lifeless people, of loveless relationships and disproportionate incomes.

But I couldn’t be more thankful to have been uprooted here.

Because here I am, being constantly reminded of allowing God to move us where we glorify Him most. In my near-perfect life in San Diego I was able to enjoy the fruits of a place that upheld both a rich, diverse culture with wonderful, love-driven people. I could easily see myself settling down there, getting married in Balboa and taking my kids to Mission Bay in the summer. I could lose sight of the rest of the world there, and find utter contentment in a 372 square-mile bubble.

But at this moment in my life, that is not the person He has shaped me to be.

I was not built for settling. I was not meant for roots. I was made for exploring, wandering, serving in places far and unknown and unreached. Tomorrow, God is taking me to a place I’ve dreamed of for years, and I get to love, serve, and grow in the way He has prepared my life for. I may not get to root myself anywhere, but I get to plant seeds everywhere. I may not call one place home, but God gives me new members of my family every place he leads me to.

God’s gift to me of singleness, of rootlessness, is a wonderful thing. It has taken me too long to really grasp it. But throughout this process of understanding I have been brought back to one of my favorite passages. In Matthew 6 Jesus reminds us not to get caught up in petty worries, in the self-gratifying pursuits of this world, and to follow Him always. “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well, (Matthew 6:33)”, Christ commands us.

I am certainly no source of wisdom, and I have little lasting advice to give anyone; but I do encourage all of you to question where you’re at, to be willing for God to take you places you are completely out of your element in.

Do you live where you live because it is most comfortable, or because it is where you most glorify God’s kingdom?

Is God calling you to uproot, to spread His love in new places?

Is He asking you to leave a relationship to focus your attention fully on Him?

Are you on the path you’ve chosen for yourself, or the path that God has planned for you?

Earlier this past winter, a friend took me to Del Mar at sunset, where she told me that God loved me more than I could imagine—and while I couldn’t see it every moment, He had a plan for me that was more fulfilling than one I could make for myself. Months later, I wish I could tell her how right she was; that the life I would’ve picked for myself six months ago wouldn’t allow me to fully enjoy the extent of His love right now. There is a great joy in losing yourself; there is eternal life in our Father’s will and desire for us. God loves you. And if uprooting yourself is what needs to happen to experience that, then I strongly suggest grabbing your shovel and digging to China. Or in some cases, Thailand.