"How are ya doin', Hannah?"
"Oh, I'm doing pretty good. How are you?" I had been preoccupied with the digging-up of a weed; a puny, tiny little weed that looked about as harmful as a dandelion. Oooh, hah, but I knew the deception of harmless, pitiful dandelion-look-alike weeds such as this one: today a weed... tomorrow a forest. I jabbed further into the dirt around its base with my hand shovel.
"So, what plans do ya have for your life?" she asked, rather bluntly, and ignoring my question completely.
"Oh, uh, well..."
She chuckled. "Start with your plans for this Summer."
I paused a moment from my weed extermination, and then I didn't stop talking to take a breath for at least ten minutes. I told her about the Summer league soccer team I was playing on, about Fir Point Bible camp and how much I loved it there; about how, recently, I had been learning to play the guitar. And then I gave a self-pitying sigh.
"If only I had my driver's license," I sighed again. "I wish I was sixteen. If I was sixteen, I could do so much more. I could drive, I could..."
"You could what?"
"Well, I'd be older and I could do more," I said adamantly. I reached down and pulled on a stem from the dandelion-look-alike weed, but it broke off and I fell backwards when it snapped. Frustrated, I went at it again with the shovel.
"That's a tough one, isn't it?" she said wisely.
"Yeah... sure is. It's stubborn."
She smiled. "I think you're stubborn."
"Yeah?" I looked up at her and half smirked. I hadn't heard that yet---today. "Maybe I wouldn't be as stubborn if I was sixteen," I joked. It wasn't a very good joke.
She looked at me for a little while, and then she said something that has come back to my memory this morning and got me thinking. "Don't wish your life away, Hannah..." her tone became serious. "Do what you can do, with what you have, with where you are. Too much wishing makes for too little doing, and the doing is what counts."
She looked at me closer. I was still standing on my knees, shovel in hand. I wiped some dirt off my cheek self-consciously.
"It's not wrong to dream---but don't be satisfied with your dreaming. God's plans are bigger than your biggest dreams," she paused. "Wake up to the life you're in, dear," she said, and then she got up off the rock she was sitting on and walked back into the house.
I watched her close the screen door behind her, and then I looked down at the weed rooted into the ground at my knees. It appeared to me to be looking back, now, mockingly. Darn ole', stubborn ole', miserable old weed...
Too much wishing makes for too little doing, and the doing is what counts. The older woman's words floated around in my head for the rest of that Summer day.
This day, three years later in Winter, I've decided that there is a wishing weed growing somewhere inside of me (where do weeds like that grow? The brain? The heart?) I've also decided that it needs to be uprooted. I find myself constantly wishing for things---wishing for things that could come true, if I'd stop wishing so much and start doing. I wish I was going to college somewhere else, I wish I was more physically fit, I wish I could play the guitar better...
When I sat down to register for Winter term at OIT this morning, I wished I had the peace-of-mind that comes with knowing and having a plan. Do what you can do, with what you have, with where you are... God's plans are bigger than your biggest dreams. The advice of that woman on that Summer day, when I was fifteen-years-old, came to my mind out of the depths of my subconscious, I guess. I thought about her words---as I drove in my car; eighteen-years-old; driver's license in pocket---the whole way home. I wish I would remember simple wisdom like those words more often. But, then, I've forgotten already:
Don't wish your life away, Hannah.
Don't be satisfied with your dreaming.
God's plans are bigger...
Wake up to the life you're in.
