It was 2018 and I had just broken up with my boyfriend who lived seven hours away. I distinctly remember sitting on the cold tile floor of my Atlanta apartment in a full-on staring contest with my Bible peeking over the countertop above me. I mindlessly ran my fingers over the indentions the grout lines left on my legs as my brain refused to process the pain.
The days leading up were full of change and stretching.
A new town in a new state. A new job with new people. I was suddenly 287 miles from home, no turning back. I’ve traveled my whole life, but the thing about traveling is, you always go home.
A blank canvas that should’ve felt so exciting, to 22-year-old me, felt more final and terrifying than anything.
And to ice this cake that was so clearly baked with salt instead of sugar (I know, looking back, it was sugar all along), the person who I believed to be my forever now only had a place in my past.
As much as I wanted to scream and cry and heave, I was numb and paralyzed. My arms and legs felt like they were full of sand. I don’t think I could’ve moved if I tried. I truly thought I was physically going to snap in half from the weight of it all.
“Child, to build a church you must first break ground.”
As the revelation ricocheted through the stillness of the moment, like the sunrise it began to dawn on me that all of the earth-shaking, all of the burning and the groundbreaking was paving and forging and purging; redeeming and repositioning and making a way for me to step into all that the Lord had for me.
And boy, could I feel the tilling.
But spoiler alert! That boyfriend? He’s now my husband and daddy of our two precious boys. That job in Atlanta? Opened more doors for me than I ever thought I’d have the keys to. That cold apartment floor? It quickly became holy ground; the place where I learned to love, to even joyously anticipate the cultivating.
And the things the Lord has built on the freshly broken up ground? They are beautiful beyond anything my shaky, fleshy hands could have pieced together with even the best scotch tape and chewing gum.
They are sturdy and deeply rooted in the goodness and provision of the same God who met me atop my dry, cracked soil. Just as He promised, He carved rivers in the desolate places of my heart.
He made a way.
Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in [union with] Him [reflecting His character in the things you do and say—living lives that lead others away from sin], having been deeply rooted [in Him] and now being continually built up in Him and [becoming increasingly more] established in your faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing in it with gratitude (Colossians 2:6-7).
