Endure to the End

Endure to the end--one of the seemingly most difficult commandments, because it entails never giving up.

I saw some pretty amazing examples of endurance this last week. One was in the World cup soccer tournament. US had to win against Algeria or they'd be eliminated. When the regulation time was over, and the US still hadn't scored, some people, my husband included, just turned off the painful game. But Landon Donovan wasn't giving up that easily. With 45 seconds into injury time, he scored a goal. US would advance.

At about the same time John Isner and Nicolas Mahut were testing their endurance skills on the courts of Wimbledon in England. After playing on three separate days, for a match of 11 hours and 5 minutes, John Isner finally won the match, 70-68 in the fifth set.

But, perhaps the example of reaching beyond limits and enduring that hit me the most powerfully last week came from a group of teen-age girls. When about 35 of us from our church headed to the mountains for a week of girls' camp and high adventure, we didn't realize what we were in store for. Sure, the river rafting was thrilling, exciting, exhilarating, and even a bit scary. But when we set off on what was to be a five-mile moderate hike I don't think I was prepared for it. I took it slowly and kept telling myself all the uphill would be downhill on the way back. Each turn we took I expected to see our final destination, the cave. Instead I saw more turns. At one of those turns we came across two of the girls standing in the middle of a huge rock, crying. They had seen a snake and were terrified, too scared to go forward. I put on a brave face and mustered up some more gumption to help convince them to go on.

But after several miles, with throbbing legs and lungs, and still no cave in sight, we came across another group of our girls in tears, heading back down the mountain. They didn't think they could finish. The path was narrow and steep, there were snakes, and one of the girls had fallen in the stream crossing on the slippery log. "We can't go any farther," they cried. "We want to go back." We had no idea how much farther the cave really was. Our bishop, who was leading, had told the girls he expected maybe another 20 minutes. "We can't do it."

Well, deep down, ok, not so far down, I was relieved we had found these girls. I was ready to be their support and say, "It's ok. This is a really hard hike, and you should be really proud of yourselves for getting this far. I'll take you back."

As we stood on the trail listening to the girls cry and try to decide who would go on and who would go back, we heard the magical voice of our leader:

"It's the Cave!"

When we looked up the side of the mountain we could make out the entrance with the bishop and a group of the girls shouting and waving.

With a pretty big, not-so-subtle sigh, I said, "I think we can do this. Do you want to try?" It would probably be another 5-10 minutes, rather than 20. One of the girls who had done the whole hike with a sore foot said, "Well, I didn't come this far and get this close to not go all the way." She inspired the rest of us.

After a little more discussion and lots of encouraging shouts from the cave, we turned up the path and kept going. As each girl arrived everyone cheered her name and handed out high-five's and hugs. We had made it. Every one of us!

Coming in from the blistering sun, the cool air of the cave felt so soothing. After a little exploration and about 25 photos with everyone's cameras, we headed out. The hike back was filled with singing, and chanting, and banging rocks together to scare away any snakes. All the girls were alive with a sense of accomplishment and joy (while I think some of us leaders were sensing something else, too, like aging muscles and creaky joints).

It wasn't the most breathtaking scenery or awe-inspiring destination I'd ever seen, but it was one of the best hikes I've done in a long time, maybe because I did it, when I really wasn't sure I could. It was hard, really hard. But I was reminded once again that hey, I can do hard things.

Elder Jeffery R. Holland gave this really great insight into enduring and looking for the good things to come:

I love the words associated with Winston Churchill's simple, profound advice to never, never, never give up. Who knows what you might be missing.