The Grass Withereth

She wanted to leave something. That is the plain version and she has never said it out loud because of how it sounds.

Not fame. She would find that horrifying. Something more like: a thing that would still be there, that somebody would use in forty years, that would mean the whole of it had gone somewhere and not just passed through.

She is fifty one and she has understood, over about the last two years, that this is not going to happen. Not through failure. Her work is good and it has been used and it has helped. It is simply the kind of work that is used up as it goes, and there is no version of it that accumulates into an object.

And she is grieving it, quietly, without telling anybody, because saying I wanted to leave something behind sounds like vanity when you say it out loud, and she is not sure it is not.

She has a notebook where she used to write down ideas for a bigger thing. She has not opened it in a year and has not thrown it away.

You may know that notebook. A quiet hope about leaving something, an understanding that you will not, and no way to grieve it that does not feel like admitting to something embarrassing.

What is actually standing

Here is a verse people know in halves, and both halves matter.

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.Isaiah 40:8

The grass withereth.

That is the first half and it is not being sentimental. In the verses around it the same thing is said about all people and all their loveliness, and the tone is not cruel, it is clear eyed. He is looking straight at how brief everything is and not flinching.

And then: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

Notice what is standing. Not a work. Not a monument, not an institution, not anybody's output. The word of God. And that is the only thing in that passage given permanence.

Which is worth sitting with, because it means the thing that endures was never something anybody was going to build.

You are looking at the one thing Scripture says stands, and it was never yours to construct. Isaiah 40:8 puts the enduring in the word of God rather than in any human work, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a relief rather than a diminishment to a woman of fifty one.

Now let me deal with the embarrassment, because it is stopping you grieving properly and the grief is legitimate.

Wanting to leave something is not vanity. Vanity wants to be admired. What you described is different: you wanted the whole of it to have gone somewhere rather than passing through. That is a desire for your life to have had substance, and it is one of the more decent things a person can want, and it is in every human being who has ever worked at anything.

So grieve it. It is a real loss. You are not going to leave a thing behind and you wanted to and that is worth being sad about.

You are allowed to be sad about this, and the wanting was never something to be ashamed of. The written word looks straight at the withering without softening it, and the Holy Spirit is not the one making you embarrassed about a decent human wish.

The honest half. I am not going to tell you that something of yours will survive after all. You have looked at this honestly for two years and you are right, and a message that dangled a monument would be treating you as somebody who could be distracted.

And I am not going to tell you that your work was therefore not important. It was used. It helped. That happened, and its being used up as it went is not a defect in it.

There is a part only you can do. You say what you wanted, out loud, without apologizing for it. And then you name the one thing that stands, which you did not build.