Seeds

Hey there, do you feel “glorious”? Colleen Chao shares why you can!

Elisa

Seeds

By Colleen Chao

A few years ago, I put a small pop-up greenhouse in my backyard and filled it with containers of rich soil. Just beneath the surface of that soil lay an assortment of seeds, some as petite as a pin head. Despite their covert nature, those seeds had me daily scouring the surface of the soil, eager to detect even the smallest signs of life. When at last the first sprouts pushed up and out, I happily announced the news to my husband and son, then continued to track and celebrate their growth each day. When the plants were fully grown, I wanted everyone to share in the homegrown delights of spicy arugula and Chinese spinach, kale and pumpkin, chives and basil. Down with grocery store produce! Those simple seeds I’d planted had burst into the best produce on the planet.

The Bible tells me that compared to what I will be in eternity, I’m a lot like those seeds. Down my body will go into the ground, broken, breathless, dust to dust—but up it will burst again “into the likeness of [Christ’s] glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). This is the mystery the apostle Paul describes in a letter to his friends:

What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow—you are not sowing the body that will be, but only a seed, perhaps of wheat or another grain. . . . So it is with the resurrection of the dead: Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power. (1 Cor. 15:36–37, 42–43)

I’ve been on a seven-year cancer journey that has not been kind to my body. Though I once enjoyed compliments about how young I looked for my age, myriad harsh treatments, surgeries, pain, premature menopause, insomnia, and an overworked immune system have taken their toll, aging me beyond my forty-eight years.

In a culture that worships physical beauty and toils to preserve every last vestige of youthful appearance, I’ve felt the disparity of having a bald head (twice over), sallow skin, resilient rashes, discolored and brittle teeth, scant lashes, and sunken, swollen eyes. I spend twelve to fourteen hours in bed every day and am still exhausted. I feel like William Wilberforce when he said at the end of his life, “I am like a clock that is almost run down.”

But whether it’s our beauty or our baldness that turns heads, whether it’s our muscles or our wrinkles that ripple—we’re all the same: we’re all just seeds. As my body endures a slow dying process, I remind myself of what is true and enduring. When the mirror says one thing, I can say quite another: “Girl, you haven’t even begun to know beauty yet. Compared to your future resurrected body, this temporary body is a painted pebble at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, a teaspoon of saltwater thrown into the ocean. Let these signs of aging, and these burdens you bear in your body, increase your longing for eternity, and your desire for True Beauty.”

Dear fellow seedling, we’re gonna be glorious. We’ll roll our eyes at our self-absorption and small-mindedness when we finally see who we are in the presence of God. His love and light will illumine us from the inside out, making us radiant and causing us to shine so bright, even kings will be drawn to us (Isa. 60:3). Daniel said we’ll shine like the stars of the universe (12:3), and Jesus said we’ll shine like the sun (Matt. 13:43).

Until that Day, we can embrace the awkward aging process—we can even endure the terrible effects of death and disease in our bodies—because we know this isn’t it. Whether slowly or quickly, naturally or tragically, our bodies will die.

I’m stunned all over again that God became so wholly human that he too lived in a seed-body. We’re told that Jesus is the firstfruits of those who have died—the first body to be raised from the grave in power and beauty. The first seed to push up and out of the soil into life. (See 1 Cor. 15:20–23 and 1 Thess. 4:13–18)

Although we wish our bodies could be glorious and powerful today (we’d prefer to buy the starter plant, or the full-grown transplant, so we don’t have to go through the tedious process of seeding), the glory is in the seed. And God, the Great Sower himself, will water us and tend to us till we burst through the soil of weakness into our never-ending life of beauty and power.

Adapted from On Our Way Home: Reflections on Heaven in the Face of Death, by Colleen Chao, © 2025, Moody Publishers. Used by permission.

Colleen Chao has written extensively about finding God's goodness in the unexpected chapters of her life, including singleness, chronic illness, and terminal cancer. Her most recent book is On Our Way Home. She's worked as an editor and writer for global organizations, and an English teacher to some of her favorite people on earth—teenagers. When she's not wrangling words, she enjoys beautiful hikes, side-splitting laughter, and half-read books piled bedside. She makes her home just outside Boise, Idaho with her husband Eddie, their son Jeremy, and Willow the dog.