7.20.2008

Choir Notes


Keep Going
From Music and The Spoken Word
Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell • Program 4115

We’ve all heard the saying that “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” And the truth is, sometimes the best way to get through a trial is simply to keep going. Choosing not to become emotionally or spiritually stuck actually helps us summon the strength we need to move forward with life.

No one knows this better than pioneers who blaze new trails. Whether making their way across fields of discovery, over rocky ridges of prejudice, or through mountains of misunderstanding, pioneers make better trails for those who follow by forging ahead, even when the way seems impossible. Today we recognize such pioneers who have made our world a better place.

More than 150 years ago, a band of brave pioneers walked more than 1,000 miles to find a place of peace in the Rocky Mountains. Faith was the fuel that drove the covered wagons and the handcarts across a barren landscape. Remarkable are the stories of their courage and unflagging determination as they toiled across the seemingly endless western prairie.

Agnes Caldwell, only nine years of age at the time, never forgot how it felt to walk so far. Later in life she recounted: “I can yet close my eyes and see everything in panoramic precision before me—the ceaseless walking, walking, ever to remain in my memory.”1 The strength she gained at a young age from enduring to the trail’s end served her well for the rest of her long life.

When life gives us our own trails to blaze, when the going gets tough, we can draw strength from those pioneers and so many others who chose to keep going. Chances are that we’ll find we are stronger than we may think, and we’ll keep going too.

1 In Andrew D. Olsen, The Price We Paid: The Extraordinary Story of the Willie and Martin Handcart Pioneers (2006), 77.

2 comments:

shelly said...

So very true...beautiful. Thank you for posting these, Lyn! I love them.

In The Doghouse said...

Lyn,
"When the going gets tough the tough get going" is a perfect way to describe our pioneer ancestors.

I love pioneers and the spirit of faith they exhibited in their daily walk. That "leap of faith" is one that has benefited anyone who has forged the trail after them.

I can only hope that I can be a pioneer, to follow the same example as those who have come before me.

Great post!

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