The TREK - Sunday Day 7

Follow-up


None of the leaders of the handcart companies ever denied the inspired purpose of the trek. They may have been critical of the management and timing, much which was beyond any control, but they all grew from the experience and had received unshakable testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ.


Francis Webster had this to say, “I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it. I have gone to that sand, and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.”

Forty years after the handcart trek and three years before his death, leader John Jaques wrote these final words about the experience: “Although suffering so much privation, the emigrants felt nothing like the discouragement which many people feel now-a-days when they go to our grand City and County Building to pay their burdensome taxes.”



President James E. Faust said: “In the heroic effort of the handcart pioneers, we learn a great truth. All must pass through a refiner’s fire, and the insignificant and unimportant in our lives can melt away like dross and make our faith bright, intact and strong. There seems to be a full measure of anguish, sorrow, and often heartbreak for everyone, including those who earnestly seek to do right and be faithful. Yet this is part of the purging to become acquainted with God.”



Each one of us has experienced disappointment, tragedy or loss in our lives; our trek up Rocky Ridge. At times we may even feel as John Stewart Sr. (Oct 24) when he was placed with the frozen corpses for burial in the mass grave. Thankfully his wife Ann noticed that he was still breathing and saved him from a premature death.

Or like Elizabeth Cunningham, age 12, ( Oct 12) who was left for dead along the trail, only to have her mother recall a promise their family had been given prior to emigrating that “if they would live the gospel, all the members of the family would arrive safely in Zion.” Following the promise of this blessing, her mother went back to where they had left her, to revive her and bring her back to the camp. She knew that merely waiting for the anticipated blessing would not be enough; they needed to continue to act.

The faithful action of the mother and her daughter helped to invite the promised priesthood power and in part satisfied the requirement that we "dispute not because [we] see not, for [we] receive no witness until after the trial of [our] faith" (Ether 12:6).

Just as Joseph Kirkwood’s older brother James (Oct 23) carried him over Rocky Ridge to safety, we have an elder brother who will carry us over our Rocky Ridge. Jesus Christ has already made that sacrifice for us. He gave up his life for us that we may live. “…yea, all are fallen and lost, and must perish except it be through the atonement” (Alma 34:9). “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3”16).

As we accept the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us, as we love Him, as we believe in Him, we will once again be able to live with Him, to live once again with our deceased loved ones who have also shown that love for Him. “For behold, this is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39).

We each have a heritage in this life; something passed down to us from our ancestors, from our culture, from our faith. As we learn of it, we gain from it. Those sacrifices made by others will not be made in vain if we but hold true to those ideas and ideals which they espoused.

I pray that this week has helped to bring your life into a sharper focus as to those ideals which are of the greatest worth. We can be enveloped in the present, the mundane and the dross, or we can lift ourselves above that which we think we can achieve, and accomplish those things which we capable of achieving, when we seek the Lords help.

Go now and climb that mountain.



Gary Hyde



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