Article August 21, 1978 Issue

Patient perseverance

JENNIFER S. YOUNGMAN

While employed as a ranger in a national park I backpacked out of the wilderness one evening to another ranger's cabin at the end of a long road. Neither the ranger nor his two-way radio was there. Chagrined, I realized I had no way of notifying employees at the entrance station that I needed to be picked up. Already tired from the trek I had just finished, and discouraged by the rapidly descending darkness, I soberly set out on the final five-mile leg of my trip.

It would have been easy to become frustrated and impatient with the slow progress I was making. But I realized that if I were to stop or to give in to the tears that tempted, it would be even more difficult to reach my destination. As long as I continued to put one foot in front of the other, I knew I would inevitably get there. And not only did I get there; I found that replacing my tired thoughts with thoughts of God's goodness lightened my step along the way.

Isn't it easier to do our necessary tasks without the added weights of frustration and discouragement? Without these extra weights isn't it also easier to find solutions to problems? "Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us," ^{Heb. 12:1;} the Bible admonishes.