97 | It Was Never About the Vegetables: Healing, Belonging, and Finding Home in the Garden God Gave You.
It was never about the tomatoes. If you've ever moved, grieved a place you had to leave, or felt like you're living slightly to the side of your own life — present, but not planted — this episode is for you.
A few years ago, Sanda's family moved across state lines, leaving behind family and a church-ministry of more than twenty-two years. Her heart didn't know what to do with the grief — but her hands did. She knelt in unfamiliar dirt and started to dig. And slowly, the way a garden actually grows, the digging itself became the healing.
This is a conversation about being uprooted, and about how an uprooted woman finds her way home. Through Psalm 90 and Psalm 92, we discover that home was never the address — it was the Presence, and the Presence travels. And in John 15, the quiet turn that changes everything: you are not the gardener. You are the one being tended.
In this episode:
- Why grief over a move is real grief — and why you're allowed to grieve and plant on the very same day
- "God is your dwelling place" — He didn't stay behind in the old house, the old church, the old city. He relocated when you relocated.
- How a woman planted in God's presence can flourish in soil she never would have chosen (Psalm 92:12–14)
- The confession at the heart of it all: the vegetables were the curriculum — the Gardener was always the point
- Three formation practices: plant something as your act of staying, name your dwelling place out loud before the day, and tend one thing diligently — and let it tend you
A breath prayer to carry with you: You have been my dwelling place… I am already home.
Take your next step:
📖 The Rooted in Grace eBook is yours, free — a quiet companion for meeting God in the ordinary soil of an ordinary life, season by season. Grab it at rootedingrace.me (just an email address).
🌱 Need to actually slow down and let God re-root you? Rooted Reset is a gentle, five-day, mostly quiet email journey to help you interrupt the noise and find your footing again. Also at rootedingrace.me.
🎁 For the transplanted woman in your life — the Rooted in Grace paperback and the 30-Day Rooted in Grace Devotional both make tender gifts. Search "Rooted in Grace" on Amazon.
If this episode found a tender place in you, would you leave a rating and review? It's the simplest way to help another uprooted woman find this little garden gate — and it means more than you know.
And I'd love to hear from you: what are you planting this season, in the soil you didn't choose? Leave a comment, share this with a friend who's been transplanted, or simply reply and tell me where you are. I read every one.
Until then — stay rooted, and grow with grace. 🌿