There are seasons when the life you have built begins to make you question the life that built you.

You look back across the years and try to understand what all of it was for. The instability. The losses. The wounds you carried before you were old enough to name them. You wonder whether those experiences shaped you for a reason, or whether you have simply spent your life trying to create meaning from pain.

As you grow older, you try to build something different from what you knew. You form relationships, raise a family, pursue dreams, and promise yourself that the past will not be allowed to decide the future.

You believe that if you work hard enough, love deeply enough, and learn from what hurt you, perhaps you can create something stronger than what was handed to you.

Then life becomes complicated.

Trust is broken. Relationships change. Some people leave. Others remain, but the closeness you once shared begins to disappear. There are wounds caused by others and wounds you must admit that you caused.

Still, you try again.

You rebuild. You accept responsibility. You work to become the person you once needed. You create something from nothing without knowing whether it will survive. Over time, you begin to understand that perhaps the hardships you endured were not meaningless. Perhaps they shaped your compassion and gave you something worth sharing.

James 1:2 through 4 speaks directly to this truth: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”

That endurance does more than help us survive our own hardships. It also prepares us to recognize the pain of others and gives us something meaningful to offer them. And as you begin to heal, you may teach. You may mentor. You may write. You may volunteer. You may sit with people who are struggling and help them recognize that their lives are not over.

You encourage others because you remember when encouragement was difficult to find. You speak hope because you know what hopelessness sounds like. You try to become for others what someone once was for you, or what you wish someone had been.

Eventually, however, someone may question your motives.

They may suggest that you only help because you want approval. They may make your desire to contribute sound like weakness. They may reduce years of pain, growth, failure, repentance, work, and perseverance to nothing more than a need to be noticed.

And for a moment, if you are not careful, you may begin to believe them.

You wonder whether your sacrifices, writing or teaching matters. You question whether the conversations you have shared meant anything, or whether you were simply trying to convince yourself that you mattered.

That is when purpose can begin to feel pointless.

Trees endure seasons when their growth is nearly impossible to see. A tree may spend decades surviving drought, storms, injury, disease, and loss. Its trunk carries every year within it, including the seasons when growth was barely visible. The scars remain. Some branches are lost forever. Yet beneath the surface, the roots continue searching for water.

A tree does not stop growing because someone fails to recognize its value. It does not apologize for reaching toward the light. It does not question whether the shade it provides is meaningful simply because someone chooses not to sit beneath it.

It continues becoming what it was created to become.

I am learning that purpose cannot depend upon applause. It cannot depend upon whether the people closest to us understand it or whether those we help remember what we gave them.

I am also learning that the criticism should not always be ignored. We have to remain humble enough to examine our motives. We should ask whether we are neglecting the people we love while helping everyone else. We should consider whether our service to others has become a way of avoiding the harder work within our own lives.

But honest reflection is different from allowing another person to erase the meaning of everything we have become.

I do want my life to matter. I want what I share to help someone and give another person courage. I want those who come after me to know that I tried to turn my wounds into wisdom.

Perhaps there is a desire for approval within that. I am human, after all. Most of us want to know that our lives have mattered to someone. But there can also be purpose, gratitude, and responsibility. When you have been carried through darkness, you should be willing to turn around and help someone else find their way through it.

Purpose is not the same as praise.

Praise is something others give us. Purpose is something we choose to live out regardless of the return. It remains when no one sees you, claps, agrees, or understands.

Even when we believe we understand our purpose, certain words or losses can shake that certainty and force us to ask a difficult question.

What now?

The answer rarely arrives all at once. Sometimes it comes slowly, like roots working their way through hard, compacted soil.

We keep growing. Keep serving. Keep loving. Keep telling the truth. Keep becoming.

Not because every critic is wrong. Not because your motives are always pure. Not because everything you create will matter to everyone. Continue because the meaning of your life cannot be determined by the harshest voice in the room.

Your past is not meaningless. Your scars are not meaningless. Your losses are not meaningless. Even your failures can become something more when they produce humility, compassion, and change.

A well rooted life is not one that has avoided hardship. It is one that has continued reaching for something deeper because of it.

When the voices around you make your purpose feel pointless, return to your roots. Remember what you have survived. Remember who you have helped. Remember the person you once needed.

Then become that person for someone else.

A Practice to Cultivate

Find a quiet place and write down the criticism that has caused you to question your purpose. Do not soften it or exaggerate it. Write the words as honestly as you remember them.

Then ask yourself three questions.

Is there any truth within these words that I need to confront?

Is there anything I need to change, repair, or make right?

What part of this criticism does not belong to me?

Take responsibility for what is true. Make amends where they are needed. Change what needs to change. But do not carry accusations that are untrue simply because they were spoken by someone whose opinion matters to you.

Next, write down one person who has been helped, encouraged, or strengthened because you chose to share what you have learned. You do not need a long list. One life is enough to remind you that sincere service is never pointless.

Finally, identify one quiet act of purpose you can complete without recognition. Encourage someone privately. Sit with someone who is struggling. Repair a relationship you have neglected. Share something honest without checking whether it received applause.

Let your purpose become less about proving who you are and more about faithfully becoming who you were created to be.

Roots do not grow where everyone can see them.

They grow in the dark, where depth is formed.

‘Well Rooted’ is a new column to the Great Bend Tribune written by Jeremy Elliott. Elliott owns a lawncare business and lives in the Great Bend area.