A trip to our roots

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Our family took a trip back to explore the Reid family's roots in Scotland a few years ago. We visited the clan Donnachaidh's (Robertson's) museum in Bruars Fall. That's the clan we Reids belong to. After that, we went to the tiny village of Straloch in Perthshire, where the family has its origin. It was fascinating to think that hundreds of years ago, our ancestors lived right there and walked around, where a lot of sheep were grazing at the time where we were visiting. I think it's important to give your children roots and wings.

Roots so they can stand strong through life... and wings so they can fly free and high and become everything they're meant to be.

Roots give context, which is the family they grow up in, whether you're born into it or transplanted into your family tree. Roots connect us to the history of times gone by.

Giving my children roots means that I will impart values and share the faith I live on to the next generation. It explains who we are.

But I don't believe roots are something that has to limit anyone's future. It's more a matter of explaining life's journey so far.

Because as human beings, we can choose how we want to grow and move forward from the roots we have. Yet there are some roots that go deeper than any human roots can.

Those are the roots that I want to give to my children. I want them to understand that there is an eternal dimension in every human being's life. No human being is born as a mistake. Every human being is created in God's image, and God longs to welcome everybody to His family and to be a part of His family for always and ever.

Roots give us context and, at best, also security.

For those who may feel their roots are a burden, hindrance, or something you might want to forget, there is a wonderful opportunity and possibility in God. He gives us a new chance for connection, context, and a new family to belong to.

God's arms are wide open for us all.

And then there are the wings. As a parent, wings are much scarier to me. To give your children wings is to let them free to soar and move on through life beyond the little world that I, as a parent, have created for them. Wings make children:

* free to succeed and free to fail

* free to follow the path that I have gone or free to choose a totally different path

* free to choose to do what I would have done or free to try something totally different

* free to discover who they were created to be

* free to make their own decisions

* free to live their own lives

* free to be themselves

As a parent, this is when you pray and hope that the roots you've given your children will help them stand steady when the wind is blowing in life. Without weighing them down so they can't get enough air under their wings to fly high and sore.

I want my children to fly high and free wherever God's wind carries them.

So my prayer is that the roots will give my children a safe base to return to when they have stretched out their wings and soared out on their own in the adventure that's called life.

In the Bible, we can read:

"The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (Isa40:28-31)