The Deanna Plant

Over fifteen years ago, through the Meredith Christian Association, I met a girl named Mandy. Little did I know that she would become one of the most influential people in my life. Mandy and I began our friendship as theology buddies and have continued our deep discussions on God, life, and love over the years. Mandy is a pastor now, and her sermons and writings always inspire and challenge me. On Monday, she sent me Sunday’s sermon and then waited for me to read. Last night, she said, “You really need to read my sermon, friend,” so I finally put everything on hold and did. When I got to the following excerpt, I knew why she was anxious for me to read. I. Love. This. Story! And I am so humbled and grateful to be a part:

The physicality of birth and death (being born again and dying and resurrection) are messy. It is so very bodily to be born and to die. So it is that Jesus paints for us – in this utterly incarnational way - the picture of what and who he truly is and in doing so beckons us to ponder who it is we really are too. Are we some version of zombie-beings like the story of Ezekiel and the Valley of Dry Bones conjures up? People who walk through life without truly living? Do we sleep-walk through our days? Are we so full of shame that we can’t claim life like Judas? Are we hopeless and stuck forever exactly as we are like the Tuck family in Tuck Everlasting? Or are we continually growing more closely into the wholeness and fullness of ourselves? It is a journey of being refined, renewed and resurrected. Indeed, we continue to live out a process of dying and being resurrected – that is what it means to believe in Jesus.

Indeed, it is in all those deaths that happen throughout our life that we are truly transformed. When Nicodemus struggled with how to be born a second time, he was struggling with dying to one life and being resurrected into another. When we walk through the waters of baptism we act out this idea symbolically surrendering ourselves to death and being raised into a new life. We know these moments from our own lives – when we feel utterly broken and lost, when we let go, and when by God’s grace we find ourselves renewed, resurrected, and awakened to new possibilities, new chances, and new life.

Several years ago, my dear friend, Deanna, trusted me to walk with her into her darkest days – into her tomb, if you will. A sudden death and changing relationships left her in ruins and a flood of the hate-filled scripts of her life engulfed her and she found herself surrounded by grief, sadness and despair. We spent hours talking. She faithfully met with a counselor and she faithfully put one foot in front of the other even though she couldn’t fully see the way for all those grave clothes.

During this same time, we had a minor tragedy at our house. There was a houseplant sitting on a low shelf and one day an imaginative little boy decided to challenge it to a sword fight using a ruler as his mighty sword. I walked into the room just in time to see a chunk of the plant fly off and onto the floor. I gasped and ran over saying, “What have you done? How careless! How thoughtless! And such an innocent victim…” and a lecture about how mommy treasures her plants and they aren’t to be wacked ensued. It sounds silly but I grieved over that plant’s severed nub.

Nonetheless, I put the nub in a cup of water and watched and hoped that it might root. After awhile, it did! So I fixed a pot of soil and gently planted that nub. I found it a spot in the sunlight and went to work watering it, pulling off a leaf when it had dried up or turned yellow, and turning it periodically so it would grow tall and straight towards the sunlight. And it grew, and grew, and grew.

Somewhere along the way, I started calling that plant my, “Deanna Plant,” for somehow their journeys were parallel. With care, nurture, pruning, continual turning toward the light, she flourished too. If we look, we can see that resurrection is happening all around us.

You see, by saying he is the resurrection and life, Jesus isn’t saying there won’t be death, endings, sorrow, and grief. He isn’t saying that if we can just hold on that one of these days, in the sweet by and by, it will all be better. Jesus is saying that abundant life is ours for the claiming here and now if we can only dare to claim him. He is shouting to us in our darkest places, the tombs of our lives where we feel most alone, lost, and dead to come out! Come out and live!...

…We are a resurrection people. For we, like Mary and Martha, confess our belief in Jesus. Jesus is the resurrection and life. “Come out of your tomb and live,” he calls. Do we dare risk resurrection? Do we dare to live our lives abundantly? May it be so. Amen.
Yes. May it be so, friends. May it be so…

[And by the way...this picture IS the Deanna Plant :-). I met the plant the last time I visited Mandy’s house, and then she sent me the picture this morning :-).]