Proximity and Presence

One of the hobbies I've grown to love over the past couple of years is caring for plants. I started a few years back simply taking care of a friend’s succulent. And when I had success with this one plant; watering, growing, fertilizing, repotting, repeating, I decided to embark on my own plant adventure. Sadly, the first try was not so good. I bought three succulents and over the course of the next six months all three of them died. It was tragic. But I still loved plants and last year I was determined to begin again. June 1st of last year, my boyfriend at the time (now my husband! :)), gifted me a lovely arrangement (on the right) with an orchid and a red anthurium. It was so beautiful! I was determined to prevent these lovely plants from dying. After successfully caring for these plants for nearly a year, in the midst of this pandemic, I decided it was time to try my hand at caring for succulents again.

In April, I bought two small succulents and my friend gave me some leaves from one of his succulents to propagate. I was excited to again be raising succulents! I put the leaves out to dry out a little and see if they would sprout some roots. The trick with propagating succulents is really to ignore them, something I found nearly impossible to do! 

The two succulents when
I first brought them home

Unbeknownst to me, one of the succulents I had purchased came with a pretty severe case of root rot. This can be caused a variety of ways, but typically the plant is a goner. Thankfully I had joined a couple of plant groups on FB so that I could learn more about plants. I shared my problem with them, and a few people indeed stated that the root rot was so bad, the plant would not survive. Others however, encouraged me to “behead*” the plant and try water therapy. Since I am not one who gives up easily, I decided to "behead" the plant, save the leaves on the bad part of the stem for propagating and give water therapy a try.

* beheading a plant is simply cutting off the entire stem and saving only the very top of the plant. 

So, dutifully, I followed directions. I cut the very top part of the plant off, trying to remove the entire damaged portion and I put this part of the plant in a cup, suspended over the water in a piece of plastic. It took some time, and progress was slow… but over time, do you know what I saw?

Bright pink healthy roots growing
from what once was connected to rot.

Bright pink healthy roots sprouting from the place I was told would never live again. Bright pink healthy roots growing towards the water, their source of life. It is ingrained in plants to want to live. Succulents especially have DNA for living and growing a whole plant in each part of the plant - that’s why you can grow a new plant from just one leaf! After suspending this small plant over water for a couple of months, the roots were strong enough to be transplanted back to the soil. It's been back in the soil a while now and it's doing so well!

Before we continue, wanted to share the definitions of proximity and presence with you...

Proximity = the quality or state of being very near

Presence = the part of space within one's immediate vicinity

A little while ago as I shared this story with a friend, I had a realization. This plant embodies what can happen in our lives. When we find that we have some root rot, we need to be careful to cut it all out of our lives. Then we need to make sure we're spending time in the presence of the Living Water. You see, the plant stem never touched the water, it was suspended above it, but even that simple proximity to the presence of the life source brought back what was missing. In the same way, our proximity to our source of life, Jesus, brings back what is missing in our lives. Jesus is the Living Water. He is the one who gives sustenance in this desert. No matter how far gone you think you may be, Jesus hasn't given up on you and is waiting for you to return to His presence.

Some told me this plant couldn't be saved... but proximity to the presence of the water did the trick. You may feel like you can't be saved, or that life is just too difficult right now. But I would encourage you - don't give up hope. First, ruthlessly remove what is rotten and repent of the sin, second, get in proximity to the presence of Jesus. Turn on some worship music and just spend time worshipping him. Pour out your heart before him in prayer and thanksgiving. Just as the father welcome home the prodigal son, our heavenly Father is waiting to welcome you home when you come with a heart of repentance...

"a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise..." (Psalm 51:17b)

Sometimes it's super easy to get overwhelmed with the chaos in the world. It’s easy to be swept up in the storm, and not know which way to go. It's easy to let sin take charge and simply follow blindly along. But these choices only lead us further away from Jesus. So, when we stay close to our source of life, Jesus, we intuitively know what to do. It’s in our DNA because of who we are in Christ. First, we grow roots from being in His presence, then we can be transplanted back into the soil of daily life where we can grow the fruit encoded in our DNA. (Gal 5:22-23) I know it sounds like the cliché Sunday School answer, but Jesus really is all we need. The moment we add anything to Jesus, we're saying that what He accomplished at Calvary wasn't enough.

The other succulent that did beautifully 
from the start - just had to share cuz she's
so stinkin' CUTE! :) 

But here’s the deal, what Jesus accomplished at Calvary was ENOUGH. He did it to restore what was broken - to grant access to the proximity of his presence. Jesus died and rose again to welcome us into relationship with himself. And just like any relationship, we must spend time with Him in order to get to know Him. Have you considered that Jesus wants to know you more than you want to know Him? He desires deep, deep intimacy with you. Are you willing to invest in the most important relationship in your life, your relationship with your life source, Jesus Christ? 

Peace & Love,

Sarah