alive in Christ

Eliza got me an orchid for Christmas.

I’m notorious for killing houseplants. And outdoor plants. And anything green, growing and beautiful. I am working on my 180 in this regard. My plan is to be a sower, grower, nurturer and harvester. I’ll let you know how I come along.

So, this orchid was given to me on Christmas Eve Day. And it’s still alive. Full stop.

Just writing that sentence “And it’s still alive,” makes me do a double take. I seriously just glanced up from my chair to the orchid to make sure that it hadn’t, in fact, died in the last 15 minutes. Stranger things have happened.

Sometimes I look at myself and I do the same thing. I see my face and think, “I’m still alive.” I feel like an orchid living on a windowsill in a Minnesota house. This is not my natural habitat, and it is going to take someone who knows something about how to care for me to keep me alive. Thanks be to God, He does!

Life is very full of all kinds of crazy hard things. Some good hard, some bad hard. Some a mix of both. And God, in His wisdom, intends for us to live through them. We stay alive. We weather storms and sadness and joys and triumphs and things we never saw coming.

My Tom is far away in India right now, sharing the Gospel with people who haven’t heard it. And I’m alive here: praying, participating, wondering if he’ll come back, trusting in the One who is trustworthy. I was meant to live through this joyful, hard thing and a million other things that are easy, difficult, fun, painful, everything in between.

I’ve read a number of articles on blooming where you’re planted. They’re good. They hit on elements of contentment amid circumstances that you might wish otherwise. But I confess, sometimes a nagging objection surfaces that I wasn’t meant to be planted here.. in this world. Not in the ground anyway. I’m a potted plant– a visitor, an alien, with a caretaker who created me and knows how to keep me alive until I get transplanted to my true home in heaven– all praise to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul says in Phillippians, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.”

And in Ephesians, the Lord gives us this beautiful and costly reality to hold on to:

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” [emphasis mine]

So, yes, I am alive in Christ in this world, meant to live the life I’ve been given. And I am also seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus– my eternal home in the Lord. I am so grateful.