I Want to be a Weed

We lived in South Texas for a year. It was hot. Really hot. I saw Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego hanging around outside my kitchen window. When I asked them what they were doing, they said, “Reminiscing.”

Everything died. Birds, trees, grass. The whole place was brown… except for the weeds. Somehow the weeds stayed green. You could try to chop them off, but they’d just grow back. You could try to pull them up but they were all stuck together by the roots. Everything was dying but the weeds were flourishing.

I want to be a weed.

I’ve been to the jungle, with hundreds of inches of rain, where everything is lush and green and it’s beautiful. There’s also something beautiful about life that can flourish where nothing else can.

Weeds find water even in the sun’s harshest heat, like the hope of Christ is there for us in the harshest times of life.  We may have people hack at our character, but if we are well rooted, time will reveal the truth as we continue to grow.

Life will try to uproot us. In those times, we need to hang on tightly to those around us, clinging to each other for support.

I don’t like suffering. So much about it I don’t understand. But I have seen good people experience profound pain and deal with it with a grace I can’t explain. Not in a trite or dismissive way, but in a way that embraces their pain and, in their brokenness, chooses Hope.

And I say, “That guy’s a weed.” “She is a weed.” And it’s beautiful.