Taproot of our Lives

Rebecca Sedgwick

We have all seen Rebecca's picture on television--the victim of cyber bullying.  The 12 yr old jumped to her death. It appears that there was one very mentally disturbed 14 year, with definite anti-social traits, and a 12 year old follower.  The point is that the bullying was so agonizing that she took her own life to get out of that pain--in other words, she cut her taproot.

This story and analogy came to me while walking in the woods today. I cut two large poison ivy vines that were wrapped around a tree.  I only cut them in one place--but all the way through.  Weeks later, I look up the tree and all I see are dead vines from those two cuts--needless to say, through the tap root, the source of life. Very revealing to see the extent of those vines, especially as we consider how the taproot of life runs through all of our being.  Cut it and life ceases to flow.

We are that fragile.  The bullying cuts the roots of who we are.  What does it take to laugh and just walk away?  For teens, realistically--an opposing peer group which laughs the bullies to death instead of chasing others to their own deaths.

What is the taproot of your life that runs through your very being?  For Paul, that lifeline came from outside him in a highly legalistic faith that need to persecute others and lead them to their deaths.  That's how fragile his ego was...until Christ became that vine and he became its fruit.  Crucifixion has pruned the vine and given its life to all, including Paul the persecutor.