Just Look How Far You've Come.

Last night we had the opportunity to listen to a fantastic talk given by Sister Adair for our Relief Society birthday celebration. I was touched and will try to summarize what she said, although I probably will not do it justice. She began her talk by relating an experience that took place as she hiked Mount Ararat, one of the highest mountain peaks in Turkey.

Due to the ice-covered peaks, we were using ice axes to slowly make our way up the mountainside. About 45 minutes from the summit, the ice ax of the climber just ahead of me came loose from his pack and struck me in the forehead. As the guide calmly cleaned and bandaged my "flesh" wound, I told him I didn't think I could go any further. I was physically tired and the weight of my injury seemed to much for me to bear. Our guide looked me straight in the eye and said "But just look how far you've come." In my mind, I re-traveled along the path that had brought me to the point I was at now; from Utah to Istanbul, into Turkey to a remote village at the base of Mount Ararat, and then 4 days of strenuous climbing to reach just below the summit. Mustering the remaining strength and will I had left, I finished the climb, and it was worth every setback I had encountered.

Sister Adair then applied this experience to our own lives. We are all struggling up our own snow-capped mountains, trying to reach the summit. Because we live in a fallen world, we are guaranteed to encounter hardship, setbacks, and our own "flesh" wounds along our journey. But as we allow it to work in our lives, the power of the Atonement can heal any pain, loneliness, or sorrow we may ever experience and help us continue on when we feel we must give up.

So the next time you feel like life has dropped an ice ax on your forehead, remember to look how far you've come and then to face forward and continue in faith toward the summit.