The strange case of Robert Plant

My daughter Jessica showed up one day with a couple of plant stalks in her hands. “Do you want these, Mom?” she asked, “A woman at church gave them to me.”

I examined the pieces – healthy green stems, two inches in diameter and cut about 18 inches long. “What kind of plant are they from?”

Jess shrugged. “No idea. But I think we both know what will happen to them at my house,” she said with a laugh. She was right about that.

I planted them in suitable pots with good soil. Next to the front door they would get lots of morning light. I watered them regularly and waited for magical things to happen. And waited. And waited.

Four months later the two stems looked unchanged. There they stood, mocking me. I finally took them out to the dumpster and turned the first pot over. The soil came out easily and – to my surprise – exposed a large, healthy root network, as big as the pot from which it came. “Wait!” I hollered, nearly diving into the dumpster. “I didn’t mean it!” I jammed the plant back into the pot and returned to the house.

Within a few weeks little shoots appeared. Eventually leaves sprouted. I gave one plant to a friend. Mine grew quickly, revealing itself to be a beautiful dieffenbachia. More stalks cropped up. I repotted it several times and relocated it to bigger spaces. Finally, I bought an outdoor patio urn, filled it with soil and gave my green giant a corner of the dining room. I dubbed him Robert Plant – not that I’m a Led Zeppelin fan, but because the larger-than-life persona seemed apt (and the surname was irresistible).

We had been dragging it into the office at Christmas to make room for the tree. But now it’s 11 feet tall and won’t fit anywhere else. So, this year I draped strings of lights through the branches and we called it Christmas in Dominican.

Things not seen

Looking at Robert (he’s hard to ignore) I sometimes think about how I almost trashed him in my impatience. I couldn’t see anything going on, so I assumed nothing was. I never thought to check below the soil. That’s a bit of a motif in my life. I often quit too hastily. Even spiritually, sometimes having prayed earnestly about something, nothing seems to change. And I give up. I forget what the Bible has to say about the invisible. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).

There’s more to life than meets the eye. I have no Elisha to show me the angels surrounding us. But I do have the Holy Spirit to guide me into God’s promises. He works in ways beyond human comprehension. A Puritan’s prayer comes to mind: Permit thy unseen servants to be ever active on my behalf, and to rejoice when grace expands in me. May they never rest until my conflict is over and I stand victorious on salvation’s shore.

Just because I don’t always see the whole picture, what a shame it would be to throw away the blessings God has in mind – blessings so grand they’d touch the ceiling and fill up a room.

Thanks for the lesson, Robert. Believing is seeing.