Three In A Row And I Stopped Buying Them

Three.

The first one you were sad about. The second one you were annoyed about. The third one you did not tell anybody, and you put the pot in the cupboard under the sink, and you decided quietly that this is simply not a thing you do.

And that decision has held for a while now. You walk past them. You look. You do not pick one up.

Because picking one up would be entering something, and you already know how the entering goes.

So let me say the thing that has to come before any practical advice, because otherwise the advice just becomes the rules for a fourth attempt.

Nothing was being tested. Not the first time, not the second, and not the third.

He that observeth the wind

Ecclesiastes has a line about waiting for conditions, and it is blunter than most people expect.

He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. (Ecclesiastes 11:4, King James Version)

He that observeth the wind shall not sow.

You are standing exactly where that verse stands, and watching the sky has never once been the same thing as being careful. Ecclesiastes 11:4 says the one who observes the wind does not sow, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a woman with a pot in a cupboard.

The sentence is not a rebuke of caution. Read it again. It is a description of an outcome.

The one who waits for the conditions does not plant. That is all it says. Not: he is a coward. Not: he lacks faith. He simply does not sow, because there is always something in the sky worth waiting out, and the waiting has no natural end.

That is what has happened to your windowsill. Nobody decided anything. The conditions never came right.

You were never accused of anything by that verse, and waiting for better conditions has never once been a fault of character in you. The Spirit of God is what makes that difference land, and Ecclesiastes 11 is where the sowing and the wind are written down.

What actually killed the first three

Now the practical half, and it is genuinely simple, and it has nothing to do with your capability.

The first three died because you forgot them.

Not because you neglected them. Because a plant on a shelf in a room you do not have a daily reason to stand in is a thing with no trigger attached to it. And a task with no trigger does not get remembered by good people. It gets remembered by nobody.

You did not forget to make coffee once in those months. You did not forget to brush your teeth. Those things have a place and a moment and they happen without a decision being made.

You are already faithful to a dozen small things every single day, and none of those have ever once depended on you remembering them. Ecclesiastes 11:4 puts the trouble in the waiting rather than in the one who waits, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman what she is already doing well.

The plant had neither, so the plant depended entirely on you thinking of it, and thinking of it competed with everything else in your life.

You have plenty of care available, and the first three have never once been evidence about how much you have. What is written in Ecclesiastes 11:4 is about sowing rather than about the sower, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a verdict off three pots.

So the fix is not more care. It is a trigger.

Put one plant where you make your coffee. Not near the coffee. Where the coffee happens, within arm's reach of the kettle or the machine, in the place your hand already goes every single morning without being asked.

Then the rule is: when you notice the soil is dry while you are waiting for the coffee, water it.

You have everything this needs already, and the watering has never once had to be a new thing you remember. The Spirit of God is the one who lets an ordinary morning carry something small, and Ecclesiastes 11 is the ground under the sowing.

Why this one is not a test

Here is the part that matters more than the trigger, and I want to be careful with it.

If you do this, something will happen in about a week. You will start checking it. You will find yourself standing in front of it looking for signs, because there is a lot riding on the fourth one and you know it.

That is the thing to head off now, before it starts.

Nothing is riding on the fourth one. If it goes, it will not have proved anything, because the first three did not prove anything either, and a fourth data point on a question that was never a real question is still not a question.

You are carrying nothing into this one, and no pot on that counter has ever once been able to hold the weight you were going to put on it. Ecclesiastes 11:4 sows in weather nobody has guaranteed, and the Holy Spirit is the one who empties a windowsill of everything except a plant.

And there is no grade attached to this, which means there is also no pass. Nobody earns back three plants by keeping one. That is not how any of this works, and if it were, it would be a much worse arrangement than the one actually on offer.

You were never entered into a scheme where keeping one buys back the other three, and no arrangement like that has ever once been on offer to you. The written word of Ecclesiastes 11:4 speaks about sowing and says nothing at all about scoring, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps it that way.

You are not sitting an examination on a windowsill, and a fourth pot has never once been able to settle anything about the woman who bought it. Ecclesiastes 11:4 says he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the grading out of a kitchen.

So: one plant, beside the coffee, watered when the soil is dry and you happen to notice. That is the whole arrangement. No schedule, no checking, no fourth attempt at anything.