Roots that Bind

Chinese New Year is a celebration for those with close family ties, but a pain point for those with broken family ties of hurt, anger, and unforgiveness. However, like it or not, we are born into this family with generational roots that bind us together. Even doctors will ask about your family’s medical history because it can provide information about your potential risk for certain diseases (source cited). I was also reminded of a painting I drew (see above) last year, in which I wrote about the drawing process in this post: “Generations“.

Our extended family and our lineage are a natural community God has provided us – to give us a sense of belonging to something larger than our nucleus family. However, in its brokenness, this community might not fulfil its purpose.

Interestingly, just before Chinese New Year, I finished the novel ‘Pachinko’ by Min Jin Lee. I am usually not a fiction reader, but this book intrigued me partly because the story follows four generations of a Korean immigrant family in Japan—the family history that flows from generation to generation connected all of them. The book shows how varied experiences in each era shaped attitudes and mindsets that might conflict with one another. And that silence (to not explain) between people further exacerbates misunderstanding. Would there be less strife and more empathy if we knew the story that went behind each generation before us?

Yet even if your natural community is very broken, or you have no such community because of being abandoned or orphaned, God has given all of us a chance to be reborn into His family.

For whom He (God) foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstbornamong many brethren.

Romans 8:29 (NKJV)

Once we accept Jesus as our Saviour, He becomes our eldest brother, and God our Father. Like a plant, we’re transplanted from a pot of rocky or bad soil to a new pot of good soil for us to grow deep in Him and flourish in the body of Christ. We now have a new family of brothers and sisters in Christ.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Colossians 2:6-7 (NKJV)

Or if you are a broken branch with no family tree or from a rotten family tree, you can still be grafted unto God and His family.

• As explained in content.ces.ncsu.edu, “Grafting is a horticultural technique used to join parts from two or more plants so that they appear to grow as a single plant. In grafting, the upper part (scion) of one plant grows on the root system (rootstock) of another plant.”
• And in Wikipedia, “Grafting is a horticultural technique whereby tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together.”

That said, all earthly families are broken in one degree or another, hence all of us need to grafted and abide in the vine of God as in John 15.

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”

John 15:4-6 (NKJV)

Our hope is in Him. Be grafted in God, abide in Him and He in you. 

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