Tearfund Lent Devotional Day 45

The secret name of every death

‘Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.’ (John 12:24, NIV)

‘The secret name of every death is life again.’ Mary Oliver

At Easter, death’s curtain is pulled back and we see the smiling God behind.

All those times we die: the disappointments, the broken hearts, the rejections, the failures, the sorrow, the grief – all those fallings onto the ground.

Suffering is real. Not all of it happens for a reason. Sometimes pain is just pain. Yet it is not there to be ignored, or trampled over in the rush for a supposedly distant heaven.

The darkness is real, but so is the dawn.

After the empty tomb, Mary found a gardener – someone to tend to all those fallen seeds. Someone to help reveal all of the heaven that is hidden in our deaths.

God the gardener, care for the seeds that have fallen to the ground in my life. Help me to see that nothing ever truly ends, but is only transformed. Help me to see that the secret name of every death is life again. Amen.

Gideon Heugh

Gideon writes for Tearfund and is a poet and environmentalist