They Gave Me A Plant At The Funeral

Somebody put it in your hands at the door.

You were on the way out, or on the way in, and there was a lot happening, and a woman you half recognized pressed a pot into your hands and said something kind that you did not fully hear.

And you said thank you, because that is what you say.

And it came home in the car with the other things, and it has been on the counter since, and you have not worked out where it goes, and there is now a small ongoing pressure in the house that was not there before.

Here is what I want to establish before anything else, because I think it has never once been said.

You did not agree to this.

Beauty for ashes

Isaiah describes an exchange, and it is worth looking at who is doing the giving in it.

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. (Isaiah 61:3, King James Version)

To give unto them beauty for ashes.

You are on the receiving end of something you did not have to organize, and no gift in that verse has ever once come with a task attached to it. Isaiah 61:3 gives beauty for ashes to them that mourn, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a woman with a pot on her counter.

Look at the direction of the whole verse. Every single item goes one way. Given unto them. Appointed unto them.

Nobody who is mourning is asked to produce anything, arrange anything, or keep anything alive. They are appointed to receive, which is the only thing a person in that condition can reliably do.

And that is the exact opposite of what happened to you at that door. Something was placed in your hands, and with it, silently, a job.

You were meant to be receiving in that season rather than taking things on, and a job handed over at a funeral has never once been part of what God appoints to a mourner. The Spirit of God is what makes that permission real, and Isaiah 61 is where the giving is written down.

What they actually meant

Now the practical half, and it starts with being fair to the woman at the door.

She meant something good. She was standing in front of a person whose life had just changed and she had no words for it, and a plant is what people bring when words are not available.

The plant was a sentence. It meant: I am sorry, and I am thinking of you, and I did not know what else to do.

And that sentence was completed at the door. It was said, and received, and it worked, and it is finished. What it was not was a responsibility. She did not hand you a commitment. She handed you a way of saying something she could not say.

You are holding the completed half of a kindness and not the unfinished half of a task, and a sentence that has already been said has never once needed keeping alive. Isaiah 61:3 gives without asking, and the Holy Spirit is the one who closes a thing where it happened.

You have already received the whole of what was given, and nothing about that moment has ever once obliged you to anything afterward. What is written in Isaiah 61:3 gives to the mourner without asking, and the Holy Spirit is the one who closes a kindness where it actually happened.

And here is the specific thing that makes this hard, which is worth naming.

If the plant dies, it will feel like something. It will feel like a failure of the wrong kind, at a time when there is no capacity to absorb another one, and something in a person knows that and has been guarding against it for weeks.

You are protecting yourself from one more small loss, and that guarding has never once been weakness in a week like this one. Isaiah 61:3 gives beauty for ashes to the one who mourns, and the Spirit of God is the one who names a defense without calling it a fault.

That is why it has stayed on the counter with no decision made. A decision creates a risk, and no decision keeps everything suspended.

You are permitted to stop suspending this, and a decision made today has never once been more dangerous than weeks of carrying it undecided. The Spirit of God is the one who ends a suspension gently, and Isaiah 61 is the ground under it.

Either answer is allowed

So here is the instruction, and both halves of it are genuinely allowed.

Decide today. Out loud. It stays, or it goes.

If it stays: put it somewhere with a bit of light and water it when you think of it, and expect nothing of yourself beyond that.

If it goes: give it to somebody who will enjoy it, or put it outside, or put it in the trash. All three are permitted. Nobody is watching, the woman at the door will never ask, and if she did ask, the whole answer is: I do not have it any more. There is no version of this where letting the plant go is a statement about the person who died. The plant was not theirs. It arrived after.

You are free of that one entirely, and nothing that came into the house afterward has ever once been part of what you lost. Isaiah 61:3 appoints the mourner to receive, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps an object from standing in for a person.

You are free to let go of a thing that was never part of what you lost, and a pot handed over at a funeral has never once been the person you are grieving. Isaiah 61:3 gives beauty for ashes and lays no charge on the one receiving it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who separates an object from a loss.