ROOT BOUND
I did not choose the soil, but I know the Gardener who came for me.
My sister’s retired ballroom in the woods. The Philodendron mayoi stood close to fourteen feet, reaching for the skylight, too large for the room it had been growing in. I photographed it the way it stood that afternoon — on casters, as if it already knew it was ready to be moved.
Some things outgrow the room they were given.
Some roots circle until there is nowhere left to go.
And some cuts are not the end of anything.
DEDICATION
To the Holy Spirit, who was with me long before I knew how to name His presence — tending my soil, guarding my roots, pruning what needed to go, and keeping life alive in me.
To Marty, my wife, who tends the garden of our life — watering, nurturing, pruning, caring for the soil we both live in. She carries a tenderness toward living things that reminds me daily what faithful care looks like.
To my sister, who cared for me even in seasons when neither of us fully understood the soil we had been planted in. She gave shelter where she could, love where she could, and helped keep life growing in me when the ground around us was hard.
To my mother, who taught us how to care for plants and, in her own wounded way, taught us how to care for one another. She poured love into my sister and me — and that same nurturing spirit still lives on through Marty, through my sister, and through every living thing she taught us not to give up on.
And to the reader whose soil may feel dry, crowded, contaminated, or too small for what God intended to grow. May the love of Jesus water what is thirsty, heal what has been cut, reveal what needs to change, and give you courage to stretch your roots toward the soil He has prepared for you.
SCRIPTURE
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” — John 15:1–2 (NKJV)
THE HOOK
The room used to be a ballroom.
My sister taught dance in it for years. Now it belongs to the plants — a quiet sanctuary in the woods where more than one kind of life happens at once.
That afternoon it held three quiet corners.
My sister in one, working through boxes of old family photographs. Marty in another, reading her Bible. Me nearby, on the computer.
And standing over all of it — the philodendron. Fourteen feet of green, full and alive, too big for the room that had raised it.
There was peace in that room.
Then my sister looked up and asked Marty a question:
Would you take the plant home and trim it down? It’s gotten too large.
I watched Marty’s eyes.
She wanted it.
But underneath the joy sat a harder question —
how do you move something this alive without killing it?
THE STORY
We didn’t just talk about it.
We did it.
We cut the plant about three-quarters of the way down. We left one rooted stub in the soil at my sister’s place — something she could nurture, something that would grow again. We wrapped the upper section, gathered the leaves, let the roots hang off the side, and drove it home to Bakersfield.
It survived the trip.
One plant became two.
One stayed in the woods.
One came home.
That plant carried more than leaves.
It carried my mother.
Maybe not her original plant. But her history. Her way with living things.
My mother loved plants. She mixed nourishment into the water. She moved from plant to plant, smiling as she watered them — trimming, treating the sick ones, bringing back plants most people would have thrown away.
She said plants grew better if you talked to them. If you played them music.
She looked at plants the way she looked at me — with pure love and care.
And here is the truth I can only see now:
my mother tried to keep life alive in soil that had wounded her too.
While the plant stood in the middle of the room, my sister kept working through the boxes. Twenty-five of them. Old family photographs — some reaching back to the 1940s. The war. The Depression. Generations of the garden we came from.
By the end, we kept four.
The rest went to recycling.
I expected release to feel like loss.
It didn’t.
Some memories were not worth resurrecting. They needed to be buried, not carried.
My sister’s spirit lifted. Mine did too. We had broken free of the old garden — and in a way, we did it for our mother. I don’t think she ever fully got free.
My sister is ten years older than me. She fought her own battles in that soil, a decade ahead of mine — and still, when she could be there for me, she gave me her best. Watching her and Marty together now, tending the same plant from two ends of the state… that is a garden the old soil never could have grown.
Because here is the thing about children:
we don’t choose the soil we’re planted in.
We don’t know who handled it before us. What was mixed into it. What was missing from it. Whether the caretakers knew how to keep anything alive.
The soil I came from had been contaminated long before I arrived — generational sickness, abuse, distortion, and sin, worked into the ground by hands that came before me.
I first sensed it around six or seven. The drinking. The late nights. The yelling. The feeling that something was wrong in the house and nobody would say it out loud. I learned to hide in my room. To be seen, not heard. I waited for school mornings, because school meant I could get out of the house for a while.
Hard soil. Dry. Neglected.
And a boy’s roots kept growing anyway.
THE MOMENT
A plant can only grow so far in a pot that can no longer hold it.
Eventually the roots circle. They press against the walls. They search for water, for space, for soil that isn’t there.
Standing in that ballroom, looking up at fourteen feet of life that had outgrown its room —
I realized I was looking at my own story.
By fifteen, my roots had already grown over the edge of the pot.
I left home.
Not rebellion. Survival.
And it took me most of a lifetime to see what that first cut really was.
The cut didn’t kill the life.
It multiplied it.
THE TURN
People used to say I was lucky.
Lucky to get out. Lucky to survive. Lucky things turned out the way they did.
I wasn’t lucky.
I was blessed.
I didn’t know Jesus then. But looking back, I can see He was already tending the soil. Every moment people called luck was a hand I couldn’t see yet — protecting, guiding, keeping something alive in me before I knew how to name Him.
I gave my life to Jesus around forty. Full surrender came closer to fifty.
And that was when I finally understood: the vinedresser had been working all along — taking away what could not bear fruit, pruning what could, and never once setting down the shears to walk away from me.
THE DRIFT
Bloom where you’re planted.
Good roots stay put.
The soil made you who you are — honor it by staying in it.
Leaving is abandonment. Loyalty means enduring. Family is family, no matter what’s in the ground.
It sounds like faithfulness.
It isn’t.
I know what it costs to keep growing in a pot that can’t hold you. I circled those walls until I was fifteen.
The Gardener never asked me to bloom in contaminated soil.
He cut me out of it.
THE REFLECTION
Right now, in Bakersfield, the cutting is drying out.
Marty won’t plant it for a few days. That’s not neglect — that’s how it works. A fresh cut planted too soon can rot. The plant needs stillness before it can take new soil.
I’ve lived those seasons.
Seasons where God went quiet and nothing seemed to be growing. Seasons where I looked dead to everyone watching — maybe even to myself.
But a drying-out season is not always death.
Sometimes it is preparation for repurpose.
Sometimes what looks finished is only waiting — for the right soil, the right water, the right light.
I have been cut many times by life.
But I was never cut off from Jesus.
At sixty-seven, I am still growing. God has prepared new soil for this season — a pot groomed for my growth, holding things I could never have held before. He is my true Caretaker now. He waters the soil. He tends the leaves. He prunes what needs pruning. He provides the sunlight.
And Marty is out looking for the right pot for the plant’s new home. She tends our sanctuary the way she tends me: faithfully, quietly, like it matters. I feel safe in her care. I pray she feels the same in mine.
Back in the woods, the rooted stub is already reaching again under my sister’s hand.
One plant became two.
One in the woods. One in Bakersfield.
My mother’s love for living things — still alive, still spreading, in soil she never got to see.
WALKAWAY LINE
Being cut is not the same as being cut off.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
What soil are you still trying to grow in?
Are you root bound — and calling it loyalty?
What if the dry season isn’t death, but preparation?
MY PRAYER
Heavenly Father,
You know the soil each of us came from — who handled it, what was mixed into it, what was missing from it. Reveal the soil we are still trying to grow in. Heal the old cuts that never closed right. Prune what needs pruning, even when it hurts, and help us trust the shears in Your hand.
Give us courage to release what was never meant to be carried, and to leave the soil that cannot hold the life You intended. And when the season turns dry and quiet, remind us that stillness is not abandonment — it is preparation.
Replant us, Father, where we can bear fruit. And thank You for coming for us long before we knew how to name You.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
ABOUT G~
G~ writes from lived experience — exploring identity, authority, and time through the lens of faith, trial, leadership, and surrender. His reflections are not meant to condemn or hype, but to steady. Rooted in covenant, forged through adversity, and anchored under the authority of Jesus Christ, his work invites readers to examine who governs their lives — and to live intentionally under truth.
If what you’ve read resonates with your journey, feel free to reach out.
G~