I am constantly fighting weeds. My roses may droop and look as though they are ready to just give up and die during the heat of summer or the freezes of winter but somehow my weeds are always lush and ready to take on any challenge that I give them. I might pull them out by the roots and then treat my flowerbeds with a blanket of mulch but those pesky weeds find a way to come back again and again. I may cover them with thick black plastic but they live on. No matter what I try they are determined to rule the roost in my garden. I have a perennial battle in my attempts to keep them at bay because I am as willing to fight for what I really want as they are.

Life can be brutal. It is filled with one challenge after another. Just when we think that all is well problems sneak into our world that sometimes feel insurmountable. Our best laid plans fall apart. We find that we have as much control over the things happening to us as I do in preventing those weeds from ever again returning. It is inevitable that each of us will one day face difficulties that will try our patience and our will to fight for what we believe to be right.

I’ve had to walk through fire many times. I am not unique in that. I have watched people that I know seeming to have charmed lives only to eventually encounter grave tribulations that threaten to destroy all of the good that they have built. It takes courage for each of us to face the surprises that come our way. Often we have to be flexible and willing to change our plans just to keep moving forward. Sometimes the problems we face are so horrible and demanding that few would fault us if we simply gave up. It takes great strength to travel through a lifetime. Some people among us are like those weeds, unwilling to surrender, always coming back with vigor regardless of how much damage is done to them.

I have witnessed true survivors in my lifetime, people who were challenged by the most grave problems imaginable that they did not allow to defeat them. My grandparents are chief among those that I admire for their persistence, but of course my mother is the icon from whom I take great example. She seemed to have been stalked by tragedy for her entire life and yet she fought back with a fierceness worthy of Joan of Arc. She was unwilling to let her circumstance rule the trajectory of her life even as she fought her own mental illness which chronically returned again and again.

I know a woman who lost her father at a very young age just as I did. By the time she was fourteen she was running a household while her mother worked to keep the family afloat. She was driving a car and writing checks, purchasing groceries and watching over her brothers. She is kind and tough at one and the same time and even though her trials continue to follow her she keeps an optimistic faith in humankind and keeps moving forward knowing that she will no doubt have to climb over new barriers in her journey.

I know a young man who grew up in a tough neighborhood in Houston. He had few role models to inspire him but he somehow decided that he wanted to one day become an engineer. He ignored the temptations that were rampant in the world around him and worked hard toward achieving his goal. He struggled with the financing of a college education and went to great lengths to make unbelievable sacrifices just to keep taking classes. It took him longer than usual to earn a degree but he was unwilling to try an easier route. He did exactly what he said he would do and now proudly bears the credentials that demonstrate his persistence. He has yet to find a job, but his optimism remains. I feel certain that some discerning employer will see his grit and provide him with an opportunity to show that he does indeed have the right stuff.

Here in Houston we love Jose Altuve, a diminutive baseball player who at first glance seems to be an unlikely hero in the world of sports. Jose was told that he was too small to play in the big leagues. Teams passed on hiring him. He might have simply settled for another kind of work and played baseball as a hobby but he knew the magnitude of his heart and his own potential so he persisted until someone finally agreed to give him a chance. Now he is a superstar who regularly knocks balls out of the park even when they are pitched at him at more than ninety miles per hour. Altuve is like those pesky weeds, fighting back with all of his might at every single turn, unwilling to give up the fight no matter the odds.

None of us get through this life without trouble. Sometimes we have long moments of respite but sooner or later we each have to face the unthinkable. It is in those times that we have to be like the weeds. We have to fight with everything that we have to survive. We cannot allow anything to take us down. It’s tough to be in the dark times when it feels as though we have been covered with a shroud of black plastic. The days and hours seem to move in slow motion and we wonder if we have finally met the one event that will defeat us. That is when we must show a ferocity that cannot be matched by the problems that stalk us. That is when our true strength takes us through. We’ve all got what it takes. We just have to keep our determination alive.