I’m in the weeds. All I see is plant life, itchy weeds and buzzing insects. There’s the damp smell of earth beneath me. I can’t remember which way to go. Can’t remember what it feels like to be any place but here. 

When I was a kid, I knew exactly who I wanted to be. Maybe not the actual specifications, but the essential qualities that would compose adulthood, those were strong and certain. I would be an encourager, faithful, kind. There would be lots of writing and hard work and a houseful of children to show how to love life in the same way I loved it. 

There was one specific childhood dream that I would turn over and over in my mind till it grew smooth as a worn penny. I would live in a cottage on Prince Edward Island and support my seventeen children (yes, seventeen; not a typo) by writing novels. I would also pack big lunches. (Not sure how that became part of the dream). The thought had not yet occurred to me that a man would be useful for such endeavors. 

My dreams changed shape through the years. French education took the place of history PhD and pharmacy took over French. But despite the practicalities of college education, so much of the dream survived – to be an encourager, to write, to raise, to teach.

But for most of us, school has an end. The planning and preparing wraps up and the doors of the magic school bus flop open. You’re shoved out into the world, the corner of 51^stand Broadway, and you barely have time to dodge before you’re bowled over by a swarm of pedestrians. “Go be, go live, go do something!” your old bus driver calls. You set your shoulders, turn on your heel, and realize you have no idea where you’re going. So you ask the guy at the hotdog stand, “Which way to a job?”

Even if you’re fortunate enough to be pointed in the right direction, to land a paycheck, you still get off at the same bus stop every morning and realize that your world is no longer defined. There is no longer the next assignment, exam, or project. There are no A’s to be earned, no co-op, internship, or residency. The next moment is yours and yours alone.

And when standing alone on the corner of 51^st and Broadway with an upside-down subway map, it is oh so easy to forget about who you wanted to be. What dreams composed your future. To lose sight of what matters, frankly what makes you you. That indefinable, graciously God-granted identity that makes you a fingerprint and not a mitten. Unique. Without duplicability. 

As you shuffle forward, one foot in front of another, you may look up one morning and realize you’re in the weeds. You turn this way and that and all you see is tall grass, far over your head, slick with dew. There are mosquitoes stinging your neck and mud clinging to your shoes and you think – How the heck did I even get here? Clearly the map was inside-out as well. 

The child you dreamed of, the one you were going to be pack delicious school lunches for, doesn’t arrive. The person you wanted to be with always seems trapped on the other side of the street. Your job is the mental equivalent of stabbing your eye with a spork and your friendships the emotional equivalent of eating beef broth with a fork – so much effort for so little reward.

When all you see is the weeds, they become your world. Past, present, and future. You forget there’s a feeling outside of them. It’s true, our dreams, even the good ones, can be irrevocably lost in the course of a lifetime. We may never make it outside of our small town or be promoted to the higher visibility job. The drum kit may sit dormant and the literary agent may never call. But that’s okay, too. We exchange those dreams for others because it wasn’t the doing that ever really mattered. It’s the being. 

We all want to get out of the weeds – back to the city of prosperity, the beach of leisure, or the hills of anywhere but here. In my weed-drowning moments, I have three options. I can bushwhack my way through those weeds with the intent of high-tailing it out of there (often a futile effort). I can bend in the dirt and start scratching out my existence with Eeyore enthusiasm. Guess this is my life now. Always disappointing. 

Or accept the final option, the one that is more of a realization than a physical choice. To understand, and hold on to that understanding with unwavering determination, that for this moment, the weeds are my purpose. To embrace the green, the smell of damp earth beneath my feet. This isn’t where I wanted to be, but even still there’s something I can learn here. All the confusion and disappointment obscuring my direction, they’re just part of the plan. 

In my mid-twenties, the clarity of my personhood is not what it was even ten years ago. It will change again in another ten. But age doesn’t change who I want to be. I have to remember that. Weeds call upon us to remember, to recall, to delight in the reality that there’s more than this. They may be annoying, but they are ineffective against hope. It may be a lifelong itchy walk out of this swamp, but there’s a cool, clean forest on the other side. I believe that, if for no other reason than God said so. 

So, instead of bushwhacking our way to the city to make it big, maybe it’s time to pick up the next opportunity that comes along. To take a deep breath and accept what God’s giving rather than shove the gift back just because it’s smaller than we expected. 

Weeds hide our perspective, but weeds also force us to hope. They bring us back to our dreams, not necessarily dreams of best-seller lists and sold-out concerts, but the dreams of living a meaningful life. To love, to protect, to raise and teach. To pack incredible school lunches. To be.