We have flowers in the kitchen most of the time. Each month, on or around the 19th, my daughter Maddie buys flowers for her mother. Because that is the day, seven years ago, Maddie’s’ sister Megan died here at home; she was twenty-four. Dates and anniversaries do not mean much to me, they never have. I think about Megan every day, regardless. Grief is simply a part of me now. But dates mean a lot to my wife, her heart is often tied to the Calendar. My daughter knows this, and so, for comfort and blessing, she buys her mother flowers. God bless Madeline.
Flowers are an appropriate sign for this burden. Their gentle beauty whispers “life” to us. They remind us of sunshine, and the magic of bees and butterflies. Cut flowers are the smuggled glory of a distant meadow, brought into our home to speak to us. In the darkness of winter, they are a defiant sermon. They preach to us that Megan is not gone; she continues.
We are all cut flowers in a way. We began in a garden long ago; we were cut away from that garden. We still carry the beauty and smell of our original life, but it is all just temporary now. We fade, and we wilt, until we are recycled back into the ground. We long for home, for permanence; for a growth that eludes us. But it is the permanence of death that has been removed. Jesus has vanquished the king of terrors.
“Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.”
We like to believe that our salvation is about getting back to that original place of peace and life, but it isn’t. We were not created perfect, or even mature; we were created innocent. Salvation is not about getting back to the state of Adam and Eve. It is for accomplishing what they were created to do. To bring the glory of the garden to a barren world; to bring order from disorder; peace out of chaos. God is using it to bring life out of death, and to give beauty for ashes.
Megan is no longer a cut flower. She is growing in the garden of God in a way that my dull, weak, temporary mind cannot perceive. So, it clings to the promises from Galilee, and Golgotha. Megan’s body had been cut many times by surgery; her mind mostly destroyed; but her heart remained pure.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
The “intermediate state” is what we are between physical death and the final resurrection. Theologians debate the details of it. But I have concluded that it is only “intermediate” from our time-bound perspective, not from God’s, and not from Megan’s. Heaven has no calendars; it is always today. I am still just believing, but she is now seeing.
“TODAY you shall be with me in paradise.”
I am getting old. My petals are fading now and starting to drop. I will continue to weaken; to wither, like my parents before me. But inside I have roots. I can feel them sinking deeper each year into the imperishable soil of another land, a permanent home. It is a realm that is coming for us all, and we would be wise to make peace with it today, because there is no stopping it.
When it arrives, this temporary place will be transformed into a permanent garden kingdom as the two soils blend and become one. And we shall flow out into that new world, bringing life to it, like the rivers of Eden. Then flowers we have not even imagined will bloom for us eternally. And all the children we have missed will grow with us forever.
Thank you, Maddie.
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”