Running Along Side the Wagon

Two years ago when Craig was offered the job in Utah, we were thrilled. We had just ended more than a year of working without a pay check ( a whole other story in and of itself!) and were very excited to move on. Little did we know that this job would not turn out to be what we had hoped. Since then, Craig has struggled almost daily with working there. Then to top this off, when he told his boss about both of our cancers and the need for surgery, Craig was  stripped of all of his management positions. Now he goes to work each day, not having any passion or even knowing what he can do to fill his time there. We have prayed, fasted, repented, expressed gratitude and gone to the temple as often as we can. We do not understand why we have not been able to find something more suitable. There have been side businesses that Craig has worked with people on, and then nothing turns out. Why? Or should we ask What should we be learning from these experiences? It seems that we are doing all we can but still WAITING for something to happen in our lives. We know the Lord is aware of us, but why is it taking so long? Then I read the following story by Emily Watts which helped me to realize that all of these trials are for our good and like the girl in the story, might actually end up preserving our lives in the long run.

In her book, “Confessions of an unbalanced Woman”, Emily Watts commented on how she recently had read that many companies of handcart pioneers made their way across the plains safely. She then wondered why we hear very little about those companies and the ones that are talked about and remembered are the Willie and Martin handcart companies, the ones that almost entirely perished on the plains. She then said, “I have a theory about the Willie and Martin handcart pioneers. I believe the Lord allowed a select group of people to lay everything they had on the altar so that we could understand the existence of that kind of faith.”

“Agnes Caldwell and her family traveled with the Willie Company and suffered terrible hardships with the others. When the rescue wagons came, they took on all the infirm and those who could walk no farther, but the able-bodied still had to press forward on foot. Nine-year-old Agnes and some of the other children decided to try to keep up with the wagons in hopes of being offered a ride. Sure enough, after a time one of the drivers asked her if she’d like to ride with him, an invitation she gratefully accepted. As she tells the story... ‘At this he reached over, taking my hand clucking to his horses to make me run, with legs that seemed to me could run no farther. On we went, to what to me seemed miles. What went through my head at that time was that he was the meanest man that ever lived or that I had ever heard of.’

I’ve tried to imagine this scene. I’ve pictured a little girl who had given everything she knew how to give for a cause she had been taught was dearer than life itself. I’ve wondered how it must have felt to finally be offered some relief and then have it just as suddenly withdrawn.

Agnes continues: ‘Just at what seemed the breaking point, he stopped. Taking a blanket, he wrapped me up and lay me in the bottom of the wagon, warm and comfortable. Here I had time to change my mind, as I surely did; knowing full well by doing this he had saved me from freezing when taken into the wagon.’ (Handcart Girl, Friend, Oct. 1997 p. 35)

“I have thought of this story many times when I find myself or my friends in what I would call “running-beside-the-wagon” moments. I have wondered if at such times, when we have given all we have to give, relying on the promise that the Lord will lift us up, when we are questioning why he doesn’t pull us into the wagon when we are about to collapse from the sheer exhaustion of it all—what if we stopped and listened to the Spirit? Perhaps we might hear him saying, “Wait. Wait just a little longer. You don’t know what I’m trying to save here.” Maybe the message would even be. “You don’t know who I’m trying to save here. You don’t know whose life might be eternally affected by your wiliness to hang on for one more moment, to keep taking step after step. I promise I won’t leave you to drop. I know what you can bear, and your trials will not exceed your capacity.” Emily's words touched me deeply.  I have trusted and will continue to trust that the Lord knows what he is doing with our life, even in those hard moments when we can’t possibly see what he has in mind.