Courage... Good News and Gratitude

The good news is that the treatments are working. I can tell because I feel so much better than I did in the summer. I actually feel like exercising and doing yard work. It's wonderful!

The gratitude I feel is intense. I'm grateful for every single experience I've had this month, and there have been a plethora of positive ones! I'm grateful for every single human I've interacted with this month, and there have been the best of the best in my life!

I'm grateful for the strength my Heavenly Father gives me to keep going in this journey called life. People have commented on the courage I must have and it reminds me of a saying I have had taped to my bathroom mirror for many years.

"Courage is only the second virtue in a soldier, 

the first is endurance of fatigue."

 --Napoleon Bonaparte

We are blessed with the agency to respond to the daily emotional and physical challenges in our lives. We are also blessed with the opportunity to learn whatever Heavenly Father wants us to learn from those challenges. We make a choice every day, sometimes many times a day, as to what the legacy of our lives will be. 

“To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. 

It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. 

We make ourselves into one or the other.”

--Carlos Castaneda”

 

I'm so very very grateful for my team of warriors!

Keep Paddling

KEEP PADDLING

A series of four framed prints painted by the late Thomas Cole in 1842 entitled "The Voyage of Life" hang in our home. The paintings depict an allegory of the four stages of human life: infancy, youth, manhood, and old age. In these paintings a voyager travels in a canoe on the River of Life.

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He begins his journey in infancy on a calm river with lush green surroundings accompanied by an angel. 

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As a youth, the river bends and turns with adventure and a magnificent castle in the sky. The angel is looking on. 

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As a man, the voyager looks up praying as he helplessly goes through the treacherous rapids with the angel watching from afar. The last painting depicts an old man in a worn and weathered canoe, being led upward toward heavenly light by the guardian angel who has been present since the voyage began.

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Two weeks ago my wife and I paddled with our son and his family through the Boundary Water Lakes of Northern Minnesota. They are pristine and beautiful, just like they have been for eons of time. These lakes border Canada and are numbered in the thousands. In our small canoes we crossed several wilderness lakes and streams, paddling stroke after stroke. At times with the winds in front of us, it seemed that we were going nowhere. When the winds shifted to our sides, waves rocked the little canoes almost to a tipping point. Our grandsons sat trustingly in the center of the boats while we paddled. The journey was exhausting yet wonderful. It was worth it!

Bearskin Lake

In a way, we are all voyagers on the River of Life, paddling one stroke at time, with angels looking on. Faith, hope, trust and gratitude are only a few of the things we experience and rely on as we paddle away. Who can doubt the trust and faith of the young infant born into a family to be loved, fed, clothed, taught and protected. They are an heritage of the Lord and rely on loving parents and others to paddle for them. The youth have hope for bigger and better, energy for exploration and adventure. Those in the middle years of the voyage are sometimes just holding on as they pray to the Lord and trust in Him to make it through life's rough waters. As we near the end of our journey our gratitude unto the Lord swells within us as we come to a realization of how dependent we are on Him.

Alma speaking to his son Helaman said, "O my son Helaman, behold, thou art in thy youth, and therefore, I beseech of thee that thou wilt hear my words and learn of me; for I do know that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day" (Alma 36:3).

Nephi tells us, " Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life" (2 Nephi 31:20).

Portaging

Challenges will continue throughout our journey. Our arms may tire as we steadfastly paddle through life's turbulent waters. If we remember to feast upon the word of Christ we will learn His doctrine. It will brighten our hope, replenish our strength and increase our determination to endure. May we 'keep paddling' to the best of our ability and submissively trust in Him whose Atonement is all encompassing.

Michael L. Beus, Farmington North Stake Presidency