Briar Patch

My kiddo got in the car today full of enthusiasm to tell the epic saga of the nature walk at school that left them all bleeding. Scrapes, thorns, splinters, interwoven with tragedy and triumph…they found everything on their list.

“So, y’all went thru briars?”

“What are you talking about? Briars? What are those?”

I pointed to the brown and leafless tangles of blackberry bushes wintering on the hill. I realized they had no idea about briars. I’ve known about briars my whole life. Brer Rabbit taught me about briars.

When Brer Rabbit convinced Brer Fox to toss him in the briar patch it was his escape plan. He was born and bred in the briar patch.

There are some schools of thought, with whom I resonate, that believe you are born with a purpose. More than that, the geographic locations where we are born protect us as we journey thru life.

This week I have wrestled with my purpose. I have cried with my mother as I recall her chant to me my whole life, “you were born for a reason”. I felt thrown in the briar patch of my soul. Trudging through, scraping my arms and legs, looking for items to satisfy a checklist. I was fighting against the spaces I exist in.

Then my kid bounces in the car and reminds me of Brer Rabbit. Born and bred in the briar patch. I pray and I ask to keep listening. I just want to keep listening. I don’t know the reason I was born. But I do know my purpose is worthy of grounding myself where I am from and listening to landscape that has healed me so many times before. And so I learn to start taking up space in uncomfortable places.