Repotting

And what comes after

It was the metaphor, “Repotting,” that Hoda Kotb used in her recent interview with

Emily P. Freeman

that caught my attention— an image of upward extrication, roots dangling in the air, and then pushed firmly into new ground. It’s all too familiar, and yet it’s comforting to have a word to name the thing. I’ve been in various stages of “repotting” for years it seems: leaving a church, moving out of my home in Boston, saying goodbye to longterm roommates as they got married, landing on the generosity of others in bedrooms and basements for well over a year, working a temporary job on a farm, and finally starting afresh in my nursing profession and moving into a place of my own.

At some points, I felt like I would dangle above the soil forever, that rootedness would chronically elude me. I remember sitting in my friend Sarah’s basement in late 2022, staring at the wall of boxes that contained my life, wondering when I could unpack them, wondering where they would be opened, wondering how I would every make the agonizing decision to leave the life I had built.¹ In late 2023 I sat on the floor in my parents home, wondering how I could ever afford to live in Nashville and if I would ever have the energy (or desire) to jump back into nursing, a profession that gives so much, but often demands so much more.

There’s been a subconscious longing for rootedness at the core of my being for years now. Younger me liked the idea of a nomadic life, of stepping in and out of a variety of lived experiences, of shifting about unencumbered, avoiding something as archaic as rootedness, and yet the lived reality of an extended period of rootlessness utterly depleted me. I thrive when I’m investing in a space for longer than a few months, when I can embrace it, live into it, pay attention to the weather patterns, and become a local. I am a person of place.

Yet ironically, in the sudden absence of the uprooted discomfort I have been accustomed to, I am uncomfortable. The turmoil is missing; something feels wrong. I have a job that I like, that I am energized by, that holds room for growth. I have a place with space and I’m the only one here. Hello? This must not be right. It’s too good, it’s too much— the other shoe must be about to drop. I’m bracing for impact, and yet as I listen for the whispering voice of God, he says:

“Behold, I am doing a new thing.”²

Instinctively, I’m sticking hands and feet and mouth in the direction I assume is right, insisting like a toddler to a parent, “Yes! I can help!”

He smiles mysteriously, putting my flailing limbs down by my side, and repeating the statement: “No, I am the one doing a new thing. Your job is simply to behold.”

Yes, this is a new thing, this form of active participation that puts me on the sidelines. What does it say about me that my posture of impulse is to strive, to hunker down, to grit my teeth against the agony and the exhaustion and even the disbelief of receiving something good? I’m uncomfortable, like I’m doing this thing wrong— what am I missing??? I’m no longer stuck in mid-air, roots yearning for soil, and yet when I find myself in a state of surprising blessedness I feel like it’s all too much.

I’ve questioned God repeatedly, unwittingly asked him to prove it like he did to Gideon, and each time, he offers me a whispered and unmistakeable, YES. The apartment that fell miraculously into my lap— it is so much more than I could ask or imagine. The cozy leather reading chair I muttered an offhanded prayer for, and then found at a thrift store two hours later for $180. The painting of a woman literally leaning back that is the embodiment of this invitation I keep receiving. “Behold,” he says. And I’m trying to obey, to sit in the unfolding quiet, to pay attention, to face the real risk that sometimes things will go right.

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A few weeks ago, after a last-minute pilgrimage with my 70+ year-old friend Frances, I watched the solar eclipse in the path of totality from a random church lawn in northwestern Kentucky. Frances and I hyped each other up through the crawling traffic, excited to witness something otherworldly. Yet as the moon rolled unavoidably into place, I was flooded not with delight, but with this cosmic sense of helplessness, even terror— the sun was darkened; nothing could stop it! The world turned a strange, muted grey. I pulled my sweater onto my arms as the temperature dropped, breathing faster and faster as the climactic moment of totality approached, tears pooling awkwardly in my ears as the last sliver of sunlight was blotted out by this wild celestial course-collision.

In that strange and emotional moment where my eyes were pinned to the sky, what came to mind was Christ on the cross: the inevitability of his death, the blotting out of his breath, darkness descending upon him and mankind in that hour. But on the heels of that thought emerged the other inevitability: resurrection. The moon would not always cover the sun, just as Christ would not remain in the grave. It was only a moment of darkness, the sun would beam bright again, warming the world, casting its’ familiar glow on the land. In all of this I was a helpless spectator; there was nothing to be done but to behold. To behold, to be a witness was simply and truly good— the best thing I could possibly do.

In my own repotting season, where I find myself with space to grow, to heal, to discern, to enjoy, I am learning to rest in the invitation to behold. Some seasons are more of a call and a response, some seem like commands followed by obedience, some are characterized by working and quietly waiting. But right now, this is a season of watching the Lord work, of being overshadowed in his tender and personal care, of resting in this new and mysterious thing He is doing. It is strange, it is good, it scares me, and yet the sheer otherworldliness of it all confirms yet again that he is real. He is the one doing a new thing. Not me. And that is something to behold.

1. Emily P. Freeman’s other book, “The Next Right Thing,” helped me so much in this season— thanks Emily!

2. Isaiah 43:19