“These are my gardening gloves,” my nephew Tate announced over FaceTime, holding up his colorful wrist-guards. “And these are my knee pads…and elbow pads!” he proclaimed, proudly showing me his blue camo protective gear. “Can’t take them outside, though, ‘cause it smells like barbecue.”

“Yeah, you’re right, buddy. Gotta wait until the air is better, huh?” I replied.

“Yeah!” he agreed. “Here, I’ll put on my gardening gloves. This one is the right hand,” he said solemnly, as he proceeded to place the glove on his left hand.

My sister Lisa, Tate’s mom, came to the rescue when he grew increasingly frustrated about the “gardening gloves” not fitting properly. I laughed on my end of the FaceTime call and wished I could be there with them, helping put on his knee pads and elbow pads, and keeping him engaged indoors while the air quality up in Northern California is just too terrible to be outside for long. 

Poor buddy, I thought. First school is cancelled, and now he can’t even go out to play for a little while. Of course, this time will pass (as fire season always does), and eventually our world will recover from this pandemic — although I suspect things will always look a little different. But this cooped-up cabin-fever feeling is no joke. For three-year-olds and thirty-somethings.

Exploring the Jungle

When I look back on my childhood, my memories are split 50/50 between finding fun indoors — reading, playing Barbies with Lisa, putting on dance performances for ever-patient parents — and exploring outside — roaming “the jungle” (aka the bushes in the backyard of our Los Altos house), playing “water park” (piling all the plastic Fisher Price furniture in the yard and pointing every sprinkler and hose at them), and traipsing through the hills near our Pleasanton house. 

Time in nature has always been so good for my soul. It helps me remember how big and exciting this world can be. And when I was little, it felt like the world was full of potential, like anything could happen, like our slide might actually transport us to the Big Rock Candy Mountains as we’d seen in our “Wee Sing” VHS tapes. These days, it’s harder to embrace that sense of limitless potential, but getting outside helps. And it can be good to feel small, to remember Who is in control and Whose story this is.

Our first house in Los Altos felt especially gigantic and magical to me. Crab apples fell in late summer, and the birch trees produced little seed pods that turned into “fairy dust” in our tiny fingers. My next door neighbors and I would take the red berries from our respective bushes and lob them over the fence at each other — boys v. girls, naturally. And in the center of our backyard stood a stately elm tree. It held a red and yellow swing that my dad would push us in and run under yelling “underdoooog,” causing us to erupt in giggles and beg, “Again! Again! More underdog, Daddy!” 

We also spent time running around with the neighborhood kids and playing in our front yards (times were different). Tucked away in the front of our Los Altos house, there was a little patch of bamboo that, to me, seemed like a fairy grove. It was sort of dark and mysterious — different from the rest of the vegetation that surrounded our home. 

Bending But Not Breaking

I’ve been thinking about this little bamboo grove lately. Bamboo is at once seemingly brittle — almost as though you could just snap it in half. But in actuality, it’s incredibly strong — nourished by its roots in water-saturated soil. Apparently, bamboo has a dense and complicated root structure that’s interwoven, not straight down or straightforward. (Isn’t that just like life? Rarely do things unfold in a logical, linear fashion.) Bamboo is also a colony plant, relying on the plants that came before it for sustenance. 

When I read this recently, it stunned me how much we as humans (when we’re healthy) are like this colony plant. We rely on the people who came before us. And while we eventually learn some autonomy, we’re not isolated individuals — we’re made for community. Perhaps that’s never been more apparent than in this pandemic. We miss people (for the most part). And we miss being able to go outside and experience the world. We were not made for isolation. 

And yet, like the bamboo plant, we can still put down roots in water-saturated soil during this time. We can connect in creative, virtual ways with the people we love. We can choose to do the things that feed our souls — whether that be an early morning hike or a lavish homemade meal or a glorious afternoon nap. And for those who put their trust in God, that also looks like putting down roots in him. Saturating our hearts with his truth, so when the winds come (and they will), we can bend but not break. 

Much like in the practice of yoga, we discover that true strength is not about standing as still as a statue. Rather, it’s about the ability to fall — to topple out of tree pose — and find our center again. With Christ and the power of his Spirit at our center, we can fall and get back up, bend like bamboo but not break. Not because we are innately strong or resilient but because Jesus is. 

He’s the ultimate picture of quiet strength, of weathering the storm, of bringing comfort to all of us who are fearful but choosing to sit with him in the boat — or maybe even walk out with him on the water. We find resilience in Jesus. As much as we may try, we can’t find it in the validation of other people, the security of a relationship or even our own self-reliance. Instead, we reach down through those interwoven roots and find our strength in him.

Putting Down Roots

Of course, that’s nice to say and difficult to live out. I’ve certainly found myself several times over the last few years in places where I did not want to put down roots. Whether it be due to the difficulty of a relationship, a job, or a move, I was tempted to stay on the surface, never really embracing the place I was in because I didn’t like it. I didn’t want it. I rejected where God had me instead of blooming where I was planted. Thankfully, after a time, I stopped resisting and started to receive what he had for me in those places. 

Even as I’ve allowed myself to put down roots here in LA, I’ve prayed that it wouldn’t just be for my benefit. I want to be the seed planted in good soil that bears fruit and ends up nourishing others (Matthew 13). I want to experience the depth of God’s love, his intentions for my life and the big, mysterious ways his kingdom is coming to this broken earth. I want to experience true community, friendship and growth. And by putting down roots in Christ and abiding in him, I’m trusting that he will bear fruit in my life in every season — even the desperately difficult ones (John 15).

I want to leave you with some encouragement that I’ve been speaking to myself lately (and asking my people to remind me of when it’s hard to hear truth from my own voice)… Exchange your troubled heart for trust, for active reliance on God. Seek him for your next step. Put down roots in him and draw from his never-ending supply of love, courage and strength. He promises to provide everything we need.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith — that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3: 14-19).