Roots Five Minute Friday

It’s Friday so I’m writing off the cuff … spending five minutes just pouring words on page and joining the community of writers who do the same each week.

START

We spent several years in South Georgia where there are, essentially, two kinds of trees:  live oaks and pines.   The pine trees grow tall but not always straight. They are bent and swayed by the winds common to coastal areas.  A casual drive around almost always reveals a few of the pines snapped and fallen.

But those live oaks—glorious, spread out, moss draped wonders of the deep south—they stand firm.  Hundreds of years old, majestic, and steady in the storms.

Roots www.terilynneunderwood.com

What’s the difference?  The roots.  The pine trees roots go deep but straight down.  The live oak roots, also go deep, but they spread wide and far, creating bumps and peeking through the ground.

Taking care of the yard when you have pine trees is fairly easy: pick up the pine straw and deposit it on your flower beds for mulch, then mow.  But when you have live oaks, well, that’s a whole other thing.  The roots interfere with conveniently cutting grass, the massive reach of the trees and density of the leaves can make even having grass a challenge all it’s own.  The roots of one live oak get bound up with the roots of another until there’s no way to tell which roots belong to which tree.  It can be a mess … but those trees are solid.

Two types of trees, two types of roots.  One survives the storms, but one typically does not.

Makes me think … what kind of roots do I have?  Long and deep but not intertwined with others?  The kind that will leave me at the mercy of life’s storms?

Or, are my roots deep and wound up tight with the roots of others?  Messy and inconvenient at times but firm in the storm, bound together  with those around me?

What kind of roots do you have?

STOP

It’s Five Minute Friday time … and I’m joining the lovely Lisa-Jo and all my other writing-without-editing friends to take five minutes and just write.  This week’s topic is, obviously, roots.  Read what others have written by visiting Lisa-Jo.

Read the Psalms this summer with Scripture Dig!

Comments

  1. Hi TerriLynne! Those were among the same thoughts I had! I just love how unique God is and how it all manages to work together. I pray I have deep roots that yes, are entwined with others, even in the messiness, so that we can each withstand the storms of life. Thanks for being right before me at FMF! Have a blessed day!!!
    Lori recently posted…Roots that go deepMy Profile

  2. YES! So well said! I want those strong, thick, and deep kind of roots to weather the storms! Thank you for the challenge again to keep being intentional and deep in my relationships. Found your from FMF today 😉

  3. Love those live oaks and there roots sticking up all over the place. They have endurance and beauty and that gorgeous Spanish moss, even though it is a parasite. That’s definitely what I want to be, hanging on during the fiercest hurricane and flood and still going strong for the long haul. You took me back to Louisiana this morning. Thank you. (It was so much fun to meet your spunky self this past weekend. I wish I’d had more time to get to know you better.)
    Amy Tilson recently posted…These Roots Run DeepMy Profile

    • Headed over to read your post now … amazing isn’t it, how words can mean so many things. I spent one minute of my five trying to decide if I wanted to write about the roots in my family and how though we’re all spread out far and wide, there’s a little town in the Missouri Bootheel that calls us home …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge