Transplanted and Grafted In

My cousin, Bill went out one cool spring evening last year to get me some home grown lilacs and as an added bonus he found a forsythia. Now you have to know that anything that comes from "up home" has got to be better than anything that is grown around here. So I came back from McKean County with a bucket of 3 little bushes and my husband planted them in our back yard. We lovingly cared for them through their first summer, fall and winter. As the winter snow melted away I anxiously went out to see whether there was any life in the tiny plants. Sure enough, the forsythia, just like its older and much more mature neighbor across the alley was ready to bud. And my tiny lilacs are filled with lovely leaves and there is a promise of lilac blossoms yet to come. I guess that even the move to Cumberland County could not kill these hardy plants.

As I was thinking about this entry tonight I was thinking about how these plants represent a lot about me. I know what it is like to be transplanted and by God's grace I know what it is like to be grafted in.

Romans 11:17-18 "If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you."

When Paul penned this he was discussing how the Jews had broken off from the olive root (Christ) and that Gentiles were grafted in among the Jewish believers and are now receiving the nourishment from the root. How awesome it is to realize that we are able to be moved from one place to another - transplanted from the world of death and sin to the eternal home of our Father because we are grafted into the root that supports us.

I am so blessed when I stop and think about the wonder of my salvation. God provided the way for me to be grafted into His family. I live by the nourishment that is supplied by the Word and by the Spirit. God in His love has continued to prune and to shape me into a beautiful branch. I pray that I will be able to flower and to bear fruit that others may know by my fruit that I belong to the root.

Transplanted into the Kingdom of Light and Grafted into the Family of God!