The Dying That Grows Us
How does a grain of wheat feel as it is planted in the soil? To answer that, I imagine interviewing a stalk of wheat, for every stalk was once a grain.
Here is what the stalk might say: I liked being a grain of wheat. I was proud of who I was: Golden. Smooth. Perfectly intact. But then some farmer dug a hole and tossed me into it. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked. But my question was met with silence. Then the dirt came pouring down upon me. I protested, ‘Hey! You’re burying me alive! Stop!’ But no one heard me.
I sat in total darkness. Afraid. Then I felt something. Moisture. At first, I thought, Good. I won’t die of thirst. But soon I began to get soggy; I sensed my golden color was fading. My smooth exterior became wrinkly. My intactness was breached as I was split asunder. I whimpered, ‘I’m dying… This is the end of me.’
Then something amazing happened. Out of my shriveled, broken, dying self, two shoots emerged. One began pushing upward, the other downward–both powered by a force within and beyond me. As my root went down, my shoot went up until it broke through the soil and into the brightness of the sun. I was no longer a grain of wheat–but something better: a stalk of wheat. From me would come forth many, many grains of wheat that would help feed the people of the world.
In closing, the stalk said: “Trust the farmer… Befriend silence and darkness… Embrace transformation… Willingly relinquish your intactness… Believe… For the end is really the beginning.”
—Melannie Svobodas,
Gracious Goodness: Living Each Day in the Gifts of the Spirit
Sometimes what feels like the end is actually the beginning of something far greater. Melannie Svoboda’s parable of the grain reminds us that the journey of transformation often starts in silence, darkness, and disorientation. We may feel buried, broken, and forgotten—but God is not absent. The soil that seems to suffocate is the same soil that nourishes new life. If you’re in a season of loss, surrender, or waiting, don’t despair. Trust the Farmer. What feels like dying may in fact be your becoming. For in God’s hands, even our brokenness grows something beautiful. —DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics