Gospel Story Finder

Recently I read Lytton Strachey’s Life of Florence Nightingale. I had read it once before, but my rereading brought a new sense of admiration and respect for this great young woman of England.
She was born to the upper class, to party and to dance, to go to the races and look pretty in society. But she would have none of it. Her great desire was to [relieve] pain and suffering, to hasten healing, to make less dreadful the hospitals of the day. She devoted herself to nursing and became expert according to the training then available.
Britain became embroiled in the Crimean War, and she was appointed head of the hospital in Scutari, where thousands of the victims of the war were brought.
The picture that greeted her here was one of absolute despair. An old warehouse served as a hospital. Wounded men were crowded in great rooms that reeked of foul odors and were filled with the cries of the suffering.
This frail young woman, with those she had recruited, set to work. I quote from Mr. Strachey: “Wherever, in those vast wards suffering was at its worst and the need for help was greatest, there, as if by magic, was Miss Nightingale.”
The beds that held the suffering men stretched over four miles, with barely space between each bed to walk. But somehow, within a period of six months, “the confusion and the pressure in the wards had come to an end; order reigned in them, and cleanliness. … The rate of [death] among the cases treated had fallen from 42 per [hundred] to 22 per thousand (Life of Florence Nightingale [1934], 1186).
She had brought to pass an absolute miracle. Lives by the thousands were saved. Suffering was [reduced]. Cheer and warmth and light came into the lives of men who otherwise would have died in that dark and dreadful place.
Perhaps no other woman in the history of the world has done so much to reduce human misery as this lady with the lamp.

At the April 2022 general conference, President Russell M. Nelson taught us, “Some trials are deeply private burdens no one else can see. Others are played out on the world stage.”1
This reminds me of the experience that I had with a good member named Sister Edna who was in my Gazcue ward. She was a person who was always smiling and full of enthusiasm for life.
One day she had an accident while riding her bike and, to her surprise, she unexpectedly slipped off the bike bringing her body silently to the ground. The fall was a strong blow to her body and they rushed her to the hospital. There, they discovered that the fall had caused extreme damage to her liver and other vital organs, and it was necessary for her to go into surgery. All the families and the members in the ward were worried about our dear Sister Edna.
It was just Sister Edna and her husband in their home at this time because her daughter was serving a mission in another country and her son had just joined the U.S. Navy.
As the days passed, the general infection from the accident caused the deterioration of her health and she went from one hospital to another for various surgeries. The sisters of the Relief Society would go to the hospital every day to bring her comfort and assist in her care. When the doctors had to forbid visits because of her delicate condition, the Relief Society sisters waited at the door, praying and waiting for encouraging news. Every day we prayed and fasted to invoke the powers of heaven.
One of the sisters shared her personal experience of this event. There was an evening when she had gone to bed very concerned about Sister Edna’s critical condition. She prayed fervently while imagining the tremendous physical pain Sister Edna was surely feeling. As she thought about this, she also felt Sister Edna’s indescribable pain in her own body as though she was the one who was hurt and beaten internally. This sister had so much love and empathy for Edna that she experienced for a moment the pain that Edna felt.
Later, thanks to prayers and medical interventions, Sister Edna made a miraculous recovery.

During the message I delivered at general conference in October 1975, I felt prompted to direct my remarks to a little girl with long, blonde hair who was seated in the balcony of the Tabernacle. I called the attention of the audience to her and felt this small girl needed the message I had in mind.
At the conclusion of the session, I returned to my office and found waiting for me a young child by the name of Misti White, together with her grandparents and an aunt. As I greeted them, I recognized Misti as the one in the balcony to whom I had directed my remarks.
I learned that as her eighth birthday approached, she was in a quandary concerning whether or not to be baptized. She felt she would like to be baptized, and her grandparents, with whom she lived, wanted her to be baptized, but her less-active mother suggested she wait until she was 18 years of age to make the decision. Misti had told her grandparents, “If we go to conference, maybe Heavenly Father will let me know what I should do.”
As we continued our visit after the session, Misti’s grandmother said to me, “I think Misti has something she would like to tell you.” This sweet young girl said, “Brother Monson, while you were speaking in conference, you answered my question. I want to be baptized!”
The family returned to California, and Misti was baptized and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Choosing the right is not always easy, but a comforting spirit will accompany the decision. Emily Naegle of Woods Cross, Utah, felt the peace of the Spirit when she decided to obey the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy.

“A few months ago I had to make one of the hardest decisions of my life,” writes Emily. “I am an athlete, and for the past three years I have been involved in volleyball year-round. The only downside to this is that it required me to play on Sundays. I knew that playing on the Sabbath was wrong, but I wanted to be successful in volleyball too.

“When tryouts rolled around again this year I decided not to play. It was the hardest week, and I had to pray continually to reaffirm that I had made the right decision. I wanted to play so badly, but I wanted to follow the prophet even more. When I went to the fireside, I was still shaky about my decision. But when I left the Conference Center, a warm feeling of peace and comfort surrounded me, and I knew I had done the right thing.”

In fact, what happened after the Temple was announced was there was a community of Latter-day Saintes living in a little village called Iosepa in Skull Valley. Hawaiians were in this desolate place and when they heard of the Temple and the encouragement of their Iospepa, Joseph F. Smith, they came back in a wonderful mass migration from Zion back to Zion.

Many others have come here for the same reason; to receive their Endowments. In fact, when Joseph F. Smith went back and announced this in conference he said that this place, as he said to the brethren, would be a place not only for Hawaiians but for the peoples of the Pacific until they could have their own temples in their own places. He specifically mentioned New Zealand and Tonga and Samoa and French Polynesia, but the whole Pacific.

So that's the other consequence of having a Temple here is that Laie became international. We as an international university with our flag circle. PCC is an international gathering place. That's really an extension. We are extensions of the Temple. It became a sight that people came to from many different countries. That's another blessing of having the Temple here.

As I was nearing the end of my initial enlistment contract with the US Army, I decided that I wanted to go to college. So, in the fall of 2005, I was admitted to BYU–Hawaii.

Transitioning from active duty in the military to attending college at a church-owned school was a welcoming experience for me. I was impressed by the goodness I felt from other students the same age as me. Their goodness inspired me to be good.

My roommate was my cousin, who was also a returned missionary. I saw him often on his knees in prayer, and he was very consistent in his daily studies of the Book of Mormon. We often talked about life, church, God, and girls. I could sense that he had a personal relationship with God, which I yearned for. I wanted to be like him. Even the friends he associated with were great people. They all aspired to be the best versions of themselves. I knew I was at a good place being here at BYU–Hawaii.

However, as much as I felt good about the direction my life was going, I was again reacquainted with a similar question that I had during my time in the military, "Will I always have this desire to do good and be good?"

My cousin attended the BYU–Hawaii devotional consistently. Although I found these devotional meetings boring at the time, I tagged along with my cousin because I had nothing better to do.

On January 26, 2006, I attended the devotional address by President Alan Jr. Walker. He was, at the time, the sales director for the Polynesian Cultural Center and the stake president for the Waipahu Hawaii Stake. President Walker spoke about the importance of developing a testimony in Jesus Christ to help us withstand the adversary's powers. He recounted the story of the people of King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon. They were the people that experienced a mighty change of heart after receiving a spiritual witness that the words of Christ that King Benjamin taught them were true.

President Walker then continued, "The conclusion of that verse of scripture used to bother me. Why? Because I had experienced a change of heart, I still found myself susceptible to temptation and even occasionally succumbing to it. No major sin, but sin nonetheless.
I would think to myself, What is wrong with me? How come I do not have a disposition to do good continually?"

Those two questions grabbed my attention. What was wrong with me? Unlike the people of King Benjamin, how come I do not have a disposition to do good continually?

President Walker knows the feeling. I was ready to soak in everything he had to say. President Walker then cited Brother Robinson's reflections about the people of King Benjamin and their change of heart:

"At that moment, filled with the Spirit and clearly seeing the two paths before them, the people of Benjamin lost all desire to follow the path of evil. I feel the same way when I feel the Spirit, but I do not always feel the Spirit...Therefore, we must recharge our spiritual batteries regularly".

Everything stood still at that moment. The noise around me seemed to fade as I began an internal dialogue with myself.

"That's it, Spencer! Your Spirit is like a rechargeable battery. The reason why you don't have that desire to do good continually is because you need to recharge that desire."

I knew a thing or two about rechargeable batteries from my time in the military. This analogy made so much sense.

Our desire to do good and be good has a shelf-life. If we want to do continually like the people of King Benjamin, we need to recharge our spiritual batteries. During my time in the military, going to church was when I recharged spiritually for the week. In contrast, being a student at BYUH and feeling the goodness and wholesomeness of people around me felt like I was charging my spiritual batteries on the go every day.

I walked out of that devotional message with a firm determination to do things that would help me maintain a desire to do good and be good.

When they visited Adam-ondi-Ahman in Missouri, the Kikuchis visited with the nine missionary couples who were working there. They asked Elder Kikuchi to hold a fireside that night. In the meeting, after telling them of his boyhood hatred for Americans, he said, “But because I found my beautiful Savior through the work of humble missionaries who taught me about pre-earth life, I discovered that I am truly one of Heavenly Father’s sons. My perception totally changed. My values and my understanding of the meaning of life have changed because of the gospel. There is a purpose in life, and we have the light of the gospel, the spirit of the Lord, the power of God to obtain necessary ordinances, the love of God, and the great hope to live again and to meet God.
“I’m grateful, in a way, that my father didn’t survive the bombing, because if he had, I probably wouldn’t have been able to join the Church. My life would have taken a much different course. Where I was born and raised, there was no LDS church, and even now there is no chapel. I would have become a regular student in high school and college. And I may not have been humble enough to accept the gospel if I heard it.”
Elder Kikuchi then told the missionary couples that “I am so grateful, so thankful that you raised sons and daughters to serve as missionaries. Your sons came to my door. You may say, ‘My son didn’t go to Japan.’ But he came to my door because you prayed for all the missionaries, and some missionaries came and brought joy to my heart. Because you raised your sons and daughters and sent them on missions, many hearts were touched by them in Japan, in the Philippines, in Switzerland, in Germany, in Hawaii, and elsewhere. It did actually happen that a missionary from Idaho and a missionary from Salt Lake City knocked at my door. I know that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ and that this Church is true.”

Suddenly Vienna was placed under martial law when the government suspected a socialist uprising. Foreigners were arrested and deported. The elders, sensing danger, decided to separate. That way, if one was arrested, the other would still be free to proselyte. Elder Hammer stayed in Vienna while his companion transferred to another important city in the empire, Prague, in Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia).
Elder Biesinger found a room to rent in Prague and began talking to residents—those who spoke German—about the gospel. He won a number of friends and investigators, including Johann Klusak, a sectarian Bible agent, and Anthon Just, a dealer in furs.
On the morning of March 30 the elder was aroused from sleep and arrested by two police officers. They took him and all of his belongings down to police headquarters. There, to his dismay and shock, he found that his accuser was Mr. Klusak, the man “with whom I had conversed a great deal about Mormonism and who as my best friend introduced me to a great many people.” Also signing the complaint was Mr. Klusak’s fellow investigator, Mr. Just.
Police examined the missionary for two hours, then delivered him to the jailer. In a prison cell measuring eight by twelve feet, “a dirty hole,” he joined two accused thieves. “The cell fairly swarmed with lice, bed bugs, and fleas,” he recalled. After 48 hours in jail with nothing to eat, he was given a bowl of thin flour soup. Soon he was transferred to another prison in the city and securely locked up in Cell 34. “In the dim twilight I could discern millions of vermin, commonly called lice, crawling over wall and ceiling,” he noted. Two socialists, his new cell mates, were reclined on the floor.
Two days later he received a four-hour hearing. The judge “tried to be polite but was really bitter at heart, still I had a fair chance to testify of the organization of the Church and explain some of the principles of the gospel.” He learned at the hearing that the local newspapers had run articles about him, with his picture, calling him a great Mormon chief seeking to trap people into Mormon slavery.
In Cell 34 the missionary’s cell mate was a man sentenced to be hanged. Later Elder Biesinger was transferred to Cell 38, “where my cell mates were Rudolf Wedlich, a Socialist, and John Menedal,” a man convicted of first-degree murder. The socialist was “a pleasant companion” who joined the elder in singing the “Songs of Zion” to help pass the time. The murderer was a restless fellow who paced up and down the cell like a wild animal. Visitors were few, being the American consul, his son, and then a lawyer appointed by the consul.
Finally, after 37 1/2 days in jail, Elder Biesinger was brought to trial on May 6, 1884. The courtroom contained five judges—“Die fünf richter collegium” as they were called—two prosecuting attorneys for the state, reporters, spectators, and Mr. Pretsneider, the elder’s attorney.
The prisoner was asked to stand up during the questioning. They wanted to know why he was in the country and what doctrines he had been teaching. “In answering their questions, I had a tolerable good chance to explain the principles of the gospel and bear my testimony,” he said. Then evidence uncovered by agents in Vienna was introduced. John Klusak, who entered the complaint, did not appear. Anthon Just testified, but in Bohemian, which Elder Biesinger could not understand.
Allowed a final statement, the missionary complained that he had been very ill-treated by the first court, that as a foreigner he should have been warned concerning Austrian regulations rather than having agents spy on him and try to trap him. His attorney simply asked for leniency in case of a verdict of guilty.
While the judges deliberated, the attorneys and prisoner left the room. Elder Biesinger engaged the chief prosecutor in conversation. One charge against the elder was that he taught immoral practices by defending polygamy in Utah. “I assured him” countered the elder, “that during the 20 years I had lived in Utah I had witnessed no immorality such as I had witnessed in the city of Prague in one night.”
“Guilty,” the judges decided. The elder was guilty of violating section 304 which stated that “if any man is found guilty of canvassing as a missionary or agent for any society, church or sect with the intention of gaining them as converts to their faith providing such societies and sects are not acknowledged by the Church and authority of the state, the same is punishable with a fine not less than one nor exceeding three months imprisonment, and cost of court.”
Because of the prisoner’s good behavior, and his lengthy imprisonment to date, the judges sentenced him to the minimum possible term, one month at hard labor, and a fine of five guldens.
They asked if the elder would accept the sentence. He agreed but only on the firm condition that they understood that he had delivered his message from God to their city and nation for their salvation and that the responsibility for Prague’s rejection of the gospel rested on the authorities of the nation. The judges agreed, dropped the hard labor stipulation, and sent the elder back to Cell 38.
Ten days later he transferred to a better jail with a kinder jailer. Finally, after a total of 68 days in prison, he was released and walked out into the fresh spring air. Surprisingly, he was not banished from the country nor asked about his future plans.

In 1941 the Gila River overflowed and flooded the Duncan Valley in Arizona. A young stake president by the name of Spencer W. Kimball met with his counselors, assessed the damage, and sent a telegram to Salt Lake City asking for a large sum of money.

Instead of sending money, President Heber J. Grant sent three men: Henry D. Moyle, Marion G. Romney, and Harold B. Lee. They visited with President Kimball and taught him an important lesson: “This isn’t a program of ‘give me,’” they said. “This is a program of ‘self-help.’”

Many years later, President Kimball said: “It would have been an easy thing, I think, for the Brethren to have sent us [the money,] and it wouldn’t have been too hard to sit in my office and distribute it; but what a lot of good came to us as we had hundreds of [our own] go to Duncan and build fences and haul the hay and level the ground and do all the things that needed doing. That is self-help.”

By following the Lord’s way, the members of President Kimball’s stake not only had their immediate needs met, but they also developed self-reliance, alleviated suffering, and grew in love and unity as they served each other.

Mary Rollins was 12 years old when she first learned about the Book of Mormon. She borrowed a copy and stayed up most of the night reading.
Mary was also excited for a new book called the Book of Commandments. It would have many of the teachings Jesus Christ had given to Joseph Smith.
But some people didn’t like the Church. One day, men broke into the building where the Book of Commandments was being printed. They threw the printing press out the window and scattered the pages into the street.
Mary and her younger sister, Caroline, hid and watched. Mary wanted to save the pages before they were ruined. Caroline was afraid, but they knew the pages had the word of God on them.
The sisters ran into the street and grabbed as many pages as they could. Some men saw them and yelled at them to stop. Mary and Caroline held the pages tighter and ran into a nearby cornfield.
Two men chased after them. Mary and Caroline dropped to the ground and hid the pages beneath their bodies. They listened quietly as the men searched for them.
Soon the men gave up. Mary and Caroline were safe! They had saved the pages. Today those teachings are in the Doctrine and Covenants.

The pandemic reaffirmed to me that people—we, us, you—are inherently good, and we need each other. The world came to a halt in March of 2020. Students, including many of you, left campus housing and went home to wait and see what would come. Some students could not get home because of borders closing or other logistical matters out of their control.

Imagine you are one of the students still on campus and alone in your apartment. The stores are closed and, if you remember, toilet paper became a scarce resource. Many students bought food and cooked together to save money. But that collaboration couldn’t last for long. What do you do? How will you eat? Your family is so far away.

I’ll tell you, I witnessed magic. Not the magic of illusions or misdirection, but the magic of people ministering one by one.

As the pandemic made its way across the world, BYU-Idaho was required to close, and most employees began working remotely. But Food Services? Not so much. They went into extra innings. The Director of Food Services, Todd Huchendorf, assembled his team, and they got to work. In addition to their daily tasks, they prepared, packaged, and delivered over 152,000 meals at no cost to our students.

If you had COVID or were in quarantine, Student Life organized volunteers to deliver these meals to your apartments. Solutions Manager Karl Karstad developed a program seemingly overnight, one that allowed the university to assist those in quarantine and extend support with tutoring, mental health counseling, academic advising, notifying your instructors that you were in quarantine, peer mentors if you were feeling lonely or disconnected, and meals as needed.

In the Kimball Building on the second floor there is a plaque with a quote from President Spencer W. Kimball. It reads, “God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs.”[4] I testify that this is true. I watched a legion of people come together to ensure students had food, were cared for, and received appropriate support beyond the classroom. This did not solve the global crisis, but it did provide a semblance of peace when the world was in tumult and families and loved ones were time zones apart.

As a family we soon learned to live with the unexpected when an act of charity was involved. We had moved to California several years ago, and while we were preparing our finances to buy a home, we rented one which furnished us with appliances we needed. We had to store ours in our garage waiting for the purchase of a home. One evening in sacrament meeting she heard an earnest appeal from the bishop of our ward to assist those who had lost so much in a devastating flood a few miles from where we lived. As I drove home from work a few nights later, I saw a trailer in my driveway. There was a man tying my appliances on his trailer. I rushed into the house to see what was going on. And I was greeted with the words, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? After sacrament meeting last week, I informed the bishop if anyone needed our appliances for flood relief, they could have them.”

Every school morning at 7:15, harp music cascades from a house in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Who is making such beautiful music?
It’s 10-year-old Alexis.
What’s her secret formula for playing so well?
“I practice every day,” she says with a smile.
Alexis almost always practices for half an hour before catching the school bus at 8 a.m.
Isn’t all that practice boring? Not to Alexis. Ever since she was a baby, she has loved listening to her mother play the harp. She was excited on her third birthday when her mom gave her her first lesson.
Now the two play together in a harp ensemble made up of adults—plus Alexis. She likes the exciting, up-tempo pieces. At Christmastime—when the group plays for visitors in a historic mansion called “The Breakers” in nearby Newport—it makes those early-morning practice sessions worth the sacrifice.

Brooke P. of California, USA, could feel her resolve wavering—it would be so much easier to blend in with her teammates. The other girls were pressuring her to dress like them for practices and games.
Brooke had already decided that she wanted to be modest, but she didn’t know what that meant for playing her sport. Would it be OK to dress like her teammates just during sporting events?
“I decided to do some research,” Brooke says. “I looked through For the Strength of Youth, the scriptures, Church talks—everything I could get my hands on. Nothing seemed to describe my exact situation and give me specific enough advice. But I knew that Heavenly Father knew me and that He knew what would be modest.”
So Brooke took action again. “I decided to get down on my knees and pray,” she says. As she prayed, she expressed her desire to obey the commandments and then asked whether it would be OK for her to dress like her teammates for their practices and games.
After her prayer, Brooke felt impressed that she should not alter her clothing choices to satisfy her peers. Although her decision was unpopular, Brooke found confidence and peace knowing that her choice was pleasing to Heavenly Father.

Years ago I read the story of a young woman who went into a rural area as a schoolteacher. Among those in her class was a girl who had failed before and who was failing again. She could not read. She came from a family without means to take her to a larger city for examination to determine her problem. Sensing that the difficulty might lie with the girl’s eyes, the young teacher arranged to take her at her own expense to have her eyes tested. A deficiency was discovered that could be corrected with glasses, and these the teacher purchased from her own purse. An entire new world opened to that girl as for the first time in her life she saw clearly the words before her. The salary of that country teacher was meager, but out of the little she had she made an investment that completely changed the life of a failing student; and in so doing she found a new dimension in her own life, an investment from which dividends came constantly as the years passed.

The miracle of the mortal body became apparent to me one afternoon when I was holding my first baby. It was a girl, and suddenly she seemed to stop breathing. I tried to force air into her lungs. I cried to the Lord in desperation, and after only a few seconds that seemed like an endless hour, she began to breathe normally again. The problem was diagnosed as an enlarged thymus gland that needed treatment. I shall never forget how grateful I was for the miracle of life and for the power of the body that I knew that day. I determined to do my very best to help her use her life as the Lord intended when he gave her to me to care for and love.

I really liked your June 1997 Question and Answer about music. A month before I read that, I bought a CD that I didn’t know had some bad songs on it. My mom read through the lyrics and told me I shouldn’t listen. I then told my mom I couldn’t even hear the words. So I listened to it anyway and actually felt pretty bad. Even though I had heard the song before, I had never felt so bad listening to it.
Name WithheldSt. George, Utah

Brother Robert Stum, who was the cameraman on that project and who has since been responsible for filming many dozens of films, told us what happened as he stood at the side of the rail line to film that very precious shot of the old vintage train coming around the bend. They could not afford to hire the train for more than a couple of hours, so every shot had to be just right. And, he said, as it came around the corner he was so filled with emotion that tears filled his eyes and he could not see a thing through the camera sight. He thought that the whole thing was ruined; but the Lord was there and helping him, and when they developed the film it was exactly as it should have been, even though he could not see because of the tears that filled his eyes on that occasion.

Sean Covey is the son of Stephen R. Covey of “seven habits” fame and grew up in our ward. He and the other members of his family had those seven habits stamped across their foreheads from the day they were born. And they knew how to succeed. They are a marvelous family. Sean was a great high school football player and led his team to the state championship. He was very highly recruited. It came down to us and Stanford. Sean elected to come to BYU because he wanted to lead us to another national championship.

His freshman year he did well with the junior varsity squad, and then he left on a mission. When he came home, he was excited and eager to resume his football career. He worked hard, prepared himself physically and mentally, and halfway through his sophomore year became our starting quarterback. After winning all but one of the last few games we played that season, everything looked like it was right on track for him.

The next year, his junior year, he was named the starting quarterback but sustained a concussion against Wyoming in the first game. He came back the next game, and we beat a nationally ranked Texas team. But then he had shoulder and knee problems throughout the year. The team suffered a little bit, and he had to have surgery after the season, which prevented him from going through spring practice.

At the time we had a young freshman quarterback named Ty Detmer, who had an outstanding spring. It became evident that he might be the better of the two, but because Sean was the starter the previous year, we wanted to give him a good chance to fight for the starting position when they returned in the fall. After fall camp, it was evident that Ty was the better quarterback of the two.

Before any announcement was made, I brought Sean into the office and explained our decision to him. He didn’t speak for a couple of minutes, but finally he said, “Coach, I don’t think this is fair. I’ve worked hard, prepared well, and done everything I was supposed to do to return as the starting quarterback. This is going to be a much better team than the others that I’ve played on.”

I had to agree with Sean.

After a moment, he continued, “Coach, this isn’t fair, but I want you to know that I will be at every practice. I will be at every meeting, and I will prepare myself every week as if I were the starting quarterback. I will be ready whenever you need me.”

He did just that. Unfortunately for Sean, Ty went on to have a great year—the greatest of any sophomore quarterback in NCAA history. Sean rarely got in a game again.

Life, in this instance, was not fair to Sean, but he chose to do his very best and to contribute to the success of the team in any way he could. He was, and is, a young man of faith, of righteousness, and of prayer, with an eternal perspective on life. These attributes help him to make the right choices and to use the difficulties he encounters as stepping-stones to progress.

Five years ago, at the end of the summer of 2020, my family was eager to attend a niece’s wedding festivities. Because of the COVID-19 lockdown, it had been about five months since we’d seen our family members or done anything exciting outside of our home or yard!

On our way to the wedding reception, we stopped to see the home improvement projects some family members had been working on all summer. Most exciting to two of my sons (who were then ages thirteen and sixteen) was the giant zip line that had been installed in the yard. Now this is no small backyard zip line. It runs down the slope of the mountainside on which our family members live and stands about twenty feet off the ground!

My sister-in-law handed the boys helmets and a harness and gave them instructions at the launching platform. I could see that they weren’t really paying close attention to her—partly because they were so excited but also because they’d ridden zip lines at Scout camp before and didn’t think they needed to listen. However, on the first ride down the zip line, one of them sat in the harness backward, which led to an awkward and uncomfortable ride, if you get my drift.

As they raced back to the platform to ride a second time, the boys were arguing about when and how hard the other should pull the rope—one is cautious, the other is not. I was standing at the platform focused on trying to get them to quit squabbling and to pay attention to how they sat in the harness. With all of the commotion, none of us noticed that my younger son had failed to clip his harness to the zip line before his brother pulled the rope. It wasn’t until he neared the end of the line that he realized the only thing connecting him to the zip line was his own grip.

When you hit the end of a zip line, there can be a pretty violent impact and rebound effect because of the force and the speed at which you’re going. Though my son hung on as tightly as he could, his adolescent arm strength was no match for the impact. He slipped down the rope like Icarus falling from the sky6 and fell silently to the ground. All of the worst thoughts I could think of filled my head as I ran screaming over to where he lay motionless. Miraculously, he had landed on some pretty soft ground. Other than having a rope burn on his hands and having the wind knocked out of him, he was unhurt.

As I have reflected on this experience, I have thought about how the boys had everything they needed to have a safe and enjoyable time on the zip line. They had safety equipment, clear instructions, and supervision, yet distractions and a false sense of security prevented their safety and success.