Roots to Fly

I know many of you are thinking that I have messed up two well-known, and related phrases about raising children. The adage says “There are two gifts we should give our children. One is roots. The other is wings.”

As you may have realized by now, the Tatum household is about to change. Our oldest is headed to college this weekend so we are doing a lot of reflecting on the short 18 years we have been blessed to have him in our home. He is the first of his generation to leave the nest and, as with many firsts, there is a lot of trepidation. Granted, we are sending him to a place we know and love where we already have people in place to “keep an eye out.” However, he won’t be coming home at night for me to see with my own eyes what kind of day he had. 

Last Friday night, we honored one of Luke’s requests before he leaves for college. He wanted to host another singing night at our house with friends from church. It was during that joyful night when I got the idea for this article’s title. Referencing one of the songs we were singing, Jeremiah threw out a Bible question, and in a room where he was the youngest Christian, Luke answered. Now, some may not have heard the question as there were several people chatting, but the lady sitting next to Luke heard the question and his ready response and made a remark about his flying through Freed-Hardeman.

I got to thinking. Maybe the roots we have tried to instill are exactly what he – and children everywhere – need in order to fly. That is, if the type of flying we are encouraging is in the Lord. Often we think of roots as tying them to us, their earthly family, and I certainly hope Luke’s roots do that! But even more importantly, I hope the roots he has will allow him to “mount up with wings like eagles” while here on this earth and “some glad morning, when this life is o’er” to fly away to the land “above the bright blue.”

I love you son. Use your roots and take off!

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”  Proverbs 22:6

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AUTHOR: Amber Tatum