I Have Been Keeping Her Alive In A Pot

You are tired in a way that a plant cannot explain.

That is the thing that finally made you look at it properly. It is one pot. You have watered it maybe forty times. And you are more tired about that pot than about several things in your life that are objectively much larger.

Because it has not been a pot for a while.

Somewhere in the months after she died, without you deciding anything, that plant became the place where she is kept, and you became the person responsible for keeping her there.

And that is a full time job with no end date and no possible success, and you have been doing it quietly since the spring.

So the first thing I have to say is not about the plant either.

That was never your job. Not for one day.

I am the resurrection and the life

Jesus says something to a woman at a graveside, and the form of the sentence is the point.

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. (John 11:25, King James Version)

I am the resurrection, and the life.

You are standing in front of somebody who holds that Himself rather than delegating it, and no keeping of any kind has ever once been handed to you. John 11:25 says I am the resurrection, and the life, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a woman who has been carrying a person in a pot since the spring.

Look at the grammar. He does not say I will bring the resurrection. He does not say I have a resurrection to give out.

I am. It is not a service He provides. It is what He is, which means it is not the sort of thing that can be assisted, supported, or maintained by anybody.

And He says it to Martha, who at that moment is doing exactly what you are doing. She is standing in front of a loss, holding it, trying to work out what is still possible and what depends on whom.

You were never given a role in the holding of anybody, and nothing you do or fail to do has ever once affected where she is. The Spirit of God is what makes that reach a woman rather than merely inform her, and John 11 is where the I am is written down.

Why it is so tiring

Now the practical half, and it is about the exhaustion rather than the theology.

A job with no possible success is the most tiring job there is.

You can water that plant perfectly and she is still dead. You can water it badly and she is still exactly as present as she was. There is no version of the work where the work succeeds, and your body knows that even though the arrangement has never been examined.

You are carrying something with no finish line in it, and a job with no possible success has never once been the kind of thing a person can simply try harder at. The Spirit of God is the one who names that plainly, and John 11:25 puts the holding where it actually belongs.

That is why forty waterings have cost you more than things ten times their size. It is not the effort. It is that the effort has no destination.

You have been working at something with no possible outcome, and the tiredness of that has never once been evidence that you are grieving badly. What is written in John 11:25 puts the holding on Christ and not on the one who is left, and the Holy Spirit is the one who names an impossible job.

And I want to be careful here, because there is a version of this that is unkind.

The point is not that any of this has been silly. It is not that grief attached itself to an object and somebody should have known better. Grief attaches to objects. It always has. It is one of the most ordinary things people do and it is not a mistake.

You have done the most ordinary thing a grieving person does, and letting a loss settle onto a living thing has never once been a failure of sense. John 11:25 says I am the resurrection, and the life, and the Spirit of God is the one who says that without a word of correction in it.

The point is only that the job is heavier than anything a person can carry indefinitely, and it was never assigned.

You are not being corrected here, and the attaching of a grief to a living thing has never once been a fault in anybody. The Spirit of God is the one who can say a thing like that without it landing as a rebuke, and John 11 is the ground under it.

Put the can down

So here is the instruction and the second half is the one that does the work.

Water it today. Then say out loud: I am not the one keeping her.

And then put the can down. Physically. Set it on the counter and take your hand off it.

That sounds like theater and it is not. The sentence and the movement together do something a thought cannot. Grief that has been living in your hands needs to be addressed with your hands, and putting something down is the plainest way a body knows to end a job.

You have a body that understands an ending better than your reasoning does, and one hand coming off a watering can has never once been an empty gesture. John 11:25 says I am the resurrection, and the life, and the Holy Spirit is the one who meets a woman in a movement rather than in an argument.

You may need to say it more than once. Most people do. And then the plant can be a plant, and she can be where she actually is, which is not on your windowsill and never was.

You are able to end a job with a sentence and a movement, and putting a watering can down has never once been the same as putting her down. John 11:25 says I am the resurrection, and the life, and the Holy Spirit is the one who stands with a woman taking her hand off a can.