When Roots Run Deep

When my grandmother had her stroke, we held out hope she would one day talk again. For a while she could speak a little, but her words were all too often garbled and confused. A look of frustration soon replaced the quick smile we had always known her to wear.

Before her health slipped even more and dementia began to fully take over, the Lord gave me a gift. It happened one Sunday as I stood beside my grandmother in her church.

As the congregation began to recite the Lord’s Prayer, I heard my grandmother speaking the words right along with everyone else. Stunned, I quieted my own voice and listened. Tears threatened to spill over onto my cheeks. I could not believe what I was hearing. This woman who could not string three words together without a tremendous amount of coaching, this woman whose mouth now wrestled to spit out words that once came so easy, stood beside me reciting the Lord’s Prayer without faltering.

I know some would say it was a fluke or that she could say it simply because she had it memorized. But as I have thought on that moment over the years, I believe I witnessed something else. I believe I witnessed a heart so long in love with her Savior, so long committed to live for Him, that He could not help but spill out in that moment. It did not matter that her mind was failing. It did not matter that her body was weakening. Her heart still fully belonged to her God. Her roots ran deep.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” 2 Corinthians 4:16

Years later, when dementia had taken over, my grandmother had to be put in a nursing home. And in that place I got to witness another miracle like the one I wrote about above.

During one of my visits, a worker asked one of the other residents to come and pray for my family. I felt a little unsure. How would a woman no longer able to live on her own because of faltering mind and body pray for me, my mom, and my daughters? How would her dementia impact her prayer? What came pouring out of that precious woman’s mouth took my breath away. I do not remember the exact words she prayed, just that I felt the presence of God. And I knew. I knew she was also a woman whose roots in the Lord ran deep.

Thinking of these two women, I know what I want. I want to put down roots deep. I want to live for Him, love Him, serve Him, be all about Him so that even when my mind can no longer keep up, even when my body daily shuts down more and more, Jesus simply cannot help but still come pouring out. His daughter, His vessel, His servant – through and through until He sees fit to take me home.