Gospel Story Finder

There is a woman who suffers with a debilitating, chronic illness that persists despite medical attention, priesthood blessings, and fasting and prayers. Nevertheless, her faith in the power of prayer and the reality of God’s love for her is undiminished. She presses ahead day by day (and sometimes hour by hour) serving as called in the Church and, together with her husband, looking after her young family, smiling as much as she can. Her compassion for others runs deep, refined by her own suffering, and she often loses herself in ministering to others. She continues steadfast, and people feel happy being around her.

An early counsellor in the presidency, Sister Geraldene Orme, recalled her thoughts about the challenge of finding children to attend the new auxiliary; she had been admonished in her setting apart to teach the children, but there were precious few to teach in her class.
She stated that one day while pondering this problem, she happened to look out of the window of Unity Hall where the Saints were meeting. Outside, there were several children playing who were not members of the branch and at that moment she received the inspiration, “There are your children!”
She said the inspiration came as a voice as distinct as if it were from someone standing next to her. She exited the hall and recruited the children. Geraldene was 16 years old.

Many years ago I was taught a lesson by a man I admired very much. He was as saintly a man as I have ever known. He was steady and serene, with a deep spiritual strength that many drew upon.
He knew just how to minister to others who were suffering. On a number of occasions I was present when he gave blessings to those who were sick or otherwise afflicted.
His life had been a life of service, both in the Church and in the community.
He had presided over one of the missions of the Church and looked forward to the annual missionary reunion. When he was older he was not able to drive at night, and I offered to take him to the reunions.
This modest gesture was repaid a thousandfold.
On one occasion when we were alone and the spirit was right, he gave me a lesson for my life from an experience in his. Although I thought I had known him, he told me things I would not have supposed.
He grew up in a little community. Somehow in his youth he had a desire to make something of himself and struggled successfully to get an education.
He married a lovely young woman, and presently everything in his life was just right. He was well employed, with a bright future. They were deeply in love, and she was expecting their first child.
The night the baby was to be born there were complications. The only doctor was somewhere in the countryside tending to the sick. They were not able to find him. After many hours of labor the condition of the mother-to-be became desperate.
Finally the doctor arrived. He sensed the emergency, acted quickly, and soon had things in order. The baby was born and the crisis, it appeared, was over.
Some days later the young mother died from the very infection that the doctor had been treating at the other home that night.
My friend’s world was shattered. Everything was not right now; everything was all wrong. He had lost his wife, his sweetheart. He had no way to take care of a tiny baby and at once tend to his work.
As the weeks wore on his grief festered. “That doctor should not be allowed to practice,” he would say. “He brought that infection to my wife; if he had been careful she would be alive today.” He thought of little else, and in his bitterness he became threatening.
Then one night a knock came at his door. A little youngster said, simply, “Daddy wants you to come over. He wants to talk to you.”
“Daddy” was the stake president. A grieving, heartbroken young man went to see his spiritual leader. This spiritual shepherd had been watching his flock and had something to say to him.
The counsel from this wise servant was simply: “John, leave it alone. Nothing you do about it will bring her back. Anything you do will make it worse. John, leave it alone.”
My friend told me then that this had been his trial, his Gethsemane.
How could he leave it alone? Right was right! A terrible wrong had been committed, and somebody must pay for it.
He struggled in agony to get hold of himself. It did not happen at once. Finally he determined that whatever else the issues were, he should be obedient.
Obedience is a powerful spiritual medicine. It comes close to being a cure-all.
He determined to follow the counsel of that wise spiritual leader. He would leave it alone.
Then he told me, “I was an old man before I finally understood. It was not until I was an old man that I could finally see a poor country doctor—over-worked, underpaid, run ragged from patient to patient, with little proper medicine, no hospital, few instruments. He struggled to save lives, and succeeded for the most part.
“He had come in a moment of crisis when two lives hung in the balance and had acted without delay.
“I was an old man,” he repeated, “before finally I understood. I would have ruined my life,” he said, “and the lives of others.”
Many times he had thanked the Lord on his knees for a wise spiritual leader who counseled simply, “John, leave it alone.”

Before joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was confused about facts pertaining to life—the origin of man, the purpose of our existence, and our destination after death. Frustrated with trying to find answers to these and other basic mysteries of life, I persuaded myself that God didn’t exist. During high school I stopped attending the Orthodox Church. I was attending boarding school, so my parents were not there to take me to church. I felt I needed a rest from the worries pertaining to these ambiguities since there were no agreeable answers anywhere. I also stopped relying upon the Bible as the word of God since those who professed its teachings didn’t agree upon its meaning and couldn’t provide satisfactory answers to my questions. This remained my state of belief for six years or more, until I saw a copy of the Book of Mormon for the first time. By then I was 21 years old and was nearing graduation from university.
When I opened the Book of Mormon, I felt something pure and divine. It was a strange but familiar feeling, yet I had never experienced or remembered feeling that way. It was reassuring, affirmative and desirable. The impression was calm, warm, and sobering and seemed to enlighten my mind. I loved and enjoyed every bit of it and the desire to continue this enjoyment made me study the book daily despite my upcoming final year examinations. I would rather read The Book of Mormon than my school books. Academic studies became a burden while studying the Book of Mormon remained a joyful activity.
The Book of Mormon provided answers to most of my queries, but beyond that, it also invited into my soul, a feeling of awe, reverence and respect for the things of God. This was obviously a manifestation of the existence of a Supreme Being. Within a few days of studying the record, I knew there was a God. I could feel His presence each time I read the sacred book. I didn’t hesitate to rethink my prior opinion about His existential reality. I knew that God lived. In addition, I knew the actuality of a Savior of mankind and His atoning sacrifice. This I had been taught as a child, but my many unanswered questions had dispelled my belief in that truth. I knew that Jesus Christ lived and that He is truly the Son of God and the Savior of the world. I comprehended that He loved me. I felt deep love and gratitude to Him and especially for His atoning sacrifice. I was willing to do whatever He would require of me to be His disciple and friend. The Book of Mormon often referred to Him as the Lamb of God and I understood what that meant and the importance of His blood in atoning for our sins.
As I studied the Book of Mormon, my love for the records and for Joseph Smith, the translator, grew. I had great respect for him. I knew he was a prophet of God and that the Book of Mormon he translated was true. From the Book of Mormon, I learned in clear terms where the spirits of men go when they die and the state of the soul between death and the Resurrection—one of the many questions that bothered me from childhood and which no one ever satisfactorily answered until I read the words of Alma. (See Alma 40.)
My discovery and realization that the many witnesses of God and Jesus Christ as contained in the Book of Mormon helped me re-believe that the Bible, which I had discontinued reading long ago, was also the word of God. The Book of Mormon rekindled my belief in the Bible and led me eventually to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There I was baptized, confirmed, and received the Melchizedek Priesthood. After my graduation from the university, I served a full-time mission, eventually received my endowment, and got married to my beloved wife in the temple.
By honoring covenants made with Heavenly Father in and out of the temple, I feel an ever-increasing measure of the presence of the light, peace and warmth I felt the very first day I read The Book of Mormon. I later learned this tender feeling was the influence of the Holy Ghost confirming to me that the record was true. This gift which all new converts receive as a constant companion upon their confirmation as members of the Church has remained a reliable influence to provide the needed comfort, guidance, enlightenment and inspiration as I search the scriptures and seek answers to my prayers. President Russell M. Nelson taught, “In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”

“One day, after listening to a conference message, I had the impression that I needed to talk to the pharmacy technician at the store,” says Hannah Rawhouser, also of Arizona. “The voice inside me said, ‘He is a good person. You need to invite him to a Church activity.’”
The next time Hannah was in the drive-through, she looked for him, but he wasn’t there. Still, the prompting persisted.
“A few weeks later, I pulled up again, and there he was. With the expectation that my time would be brief, I went directly to the matter at hand. ‘Do you go to church?’ I asked. He paused with surprise and then said yes. I handed him my business card. ‘Call me sometime,’ I said and drove away. ‘Well, I did my part,’ I thought. ‘Now I won’t have any more nagging feelings.’”
To her surprise, he called the next day and introduced himself as Greg Eiselin. “He told me later that, because we are both young and single, he thought I was asking him for a date,” she says. “But we ended up talking about religion for three hours, and he began learning about the Church.” Today Elder Eiselin is serving a full-time mission in Montana, USA.

Another example of the hand of the Lord in this work occurred before Thanksgiving in 2018. Diann Ross felt prompted to go to the grocery store. While there, she noticed an African family struggling with the ATM machine. The Rusimuka and Lwakihugo families had recently immigrated from a refugee camp in Burundi. Sister Ross helped the families with their groceries and invited them to Thanksgiving dinner. The Rosses, the Lwakihugos, and the Rusimukas soon became close friends.

Several years ago there were three young American sailors stationed aboard a ship somewhere between Hawaii and Japan. Observing the beautiful deep blue sky above the sun-drenched Pacific Ocean, the three of them simultaneously concluded that this would be a wonderful opportunity to acquire a world-class suntan. After all, there was not a cloud in the sky and there was absolutely no pollution to block the sun’s ultraviolet rays.
They located some nice soft bath towels and staked out a place on the upper deck where the sun’s rays would be unobstructed. They remembered some good counsel from someone who had told them that in order to get the best results, you should turn over every few minutes like a grilled chicken on a turning spit. If you lay on your back a few minutes and then on your stomach a few minutes, you avoid the peril of becoming severely sunburned. The counsel was good, but it applies best when you don’t stay out too long, especially the very first day. Well, “boys will be boys,” and these young teenage sailors fell asleep during the rotation process as the warm summer sun slowly turned their skin from pasty pink to bright red.
When they awakened, they began to sense they were in real trouble. Their skin had been so badly sunburned it hurt to put on their shirts, it hurt to move, and it even hurt to breathe. With considerable difficulty they made their way to the lower deck to visit the ship’s physician. He gave them some anesthetic ointment which provided a degree of temporary relief from their pain. He suggested that they might be suffering from first-degree burns in a few areas and that they should probably stay in bed for a few days.
These three medium well-done musketeers proceeded to a captain’s quarters to report their plight and to request a few days sick leave as recommended by the doctor. They had anticipated some sympathy from the captain, but his reply was totally unexpected. With considerable agitation he said: “Your request for sick leave is denied. When you signed up for the U.S. Navy you agreed to keep yourselves in good physical condition, to be combat ready at all times. You are now the property of the U.S. Navy. If we had an emergency aboard ship, none of you would be in a position to help. Instead of giving you three days sick leave, I sentence you to three days in the brig for misuse and abuse of government property.”

Cheating at school is practically expected where I live. But I still live up to my standards and am respected for it. And you will be too.
I can tell you this because one guy was mad at me because I wouldn’t let him cheat off my test. He didn’t like me for a long time. But at the end of the year, he was able to joke about it. Be an example and others will follow. When you get depressed about things like this, pray. It truly helps.
Peggy Dyer, 15Evergreen, Colorado

Since childhood, Elder Carlos G. Revillo Jr. desired to serve a full-time mission. But in college, he decided to postpone his mission by a year to finish a five-year chemical engineering degree and pass national board certification exams. He landed in the top five in the board exams and received several good job offers from multinational companies.
“During that time, I had to ask myself, ‘Do I really want to serve a mission? Do I really know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true?’” Elder Revillo said. “I had to pray and really look at what I believed.”
Later he learned that his mother was praying and fasting for him. Elder Revillo said the Spirit touched his heart.
“My testimony was fully galvanized when I served a full-time mission,” he said. “All of the blessings that I have now I attribute to that critical decision.”

Perhaps my first lesson about truly good Saints without guile was learned when I was a young missionary. I moved into an area with an elder I didn’t know. I had heard other missionaries talk about how he had never received any leadership assignments and how he struggled with the Korean language despite having been in the country a long time. But as I got to know this elder, I found he was one of the most obedient and faithful missionaries I had known. He studied when it was time to study; he worked when it was time to work. He left the apartment on time and returned on time. He was diligent in studying Korean even though the language was especially difficult for him.

When I realized the comments I had heard were untrue, I felt like this missionary was being misjudged as unsuccessful. I wanted to tell the whole mission what I had discovered about this elder. I shared with my mission president my desire to correct this misunderstanding. His response was, “Heavenly Father knows this young man is a successful missionary, and so do I.” He added, “And now you know too, so who else really matters?” This wise mission president taught me what was important in service, and it wasn’t praise, position, power, honor, or authority. This was a great lesson for a young missionary who was too focused on titles.

Photographs courtesy of the Koch family
The day before they were to be married, Cristi and James Koch received devastating news. Test results showed that Cristi had breast cancer. What’s more, the cancer was already at stage 4, spreading throughout her body.
Cristi: They said I had about two years to live. I told James I would understand if this was more than he wanted to take on. “This is your chance to get out,” I said. But he said, “I’d rather be with you. We’ll fight the cancer together and do whatever we can. We’ll take whatever time in this life Heavenly Father will give us. Just remember, we’re in this for eternity.” And he is right, you know. An eternal marriage doesn’t end just because one of you moves into the next life.
James: I knew she was who I wanted to be sealed to. We had both been married before, and I fasted and prayed for a long time to find her. I prepared to be worthy of her and to be a husband who would take care of her. I wasn’t going to just walk away from that.
Cristi and James were sealed in the Draper Utah Temple.
Cristi: We decided we wanted to do all we could to be happy now and happy in eternity.
James: We’ve both always been physically active, and we decided to keep doing the things we love for as long as we could—running, hiking, swimming, traveling, dirt biking, and riding motorcycles. And we love spending time with our family. Even after surgeries to remove tumors from her chest and her back, Cristi kept doing as much as she could for as long as she could. At the same time, she started doing other things she felt needed to be done too.
Cristi: From previous marriages, James had five children and I had four. I decided I needed to write letters to them. So, I wrote this whole box of letters, and guess what—years have passed since then, and now my arm is so swollen and full of tumors that I can’t write anymore. Just a few days ago I tried to write a letter to my daughter for her birthday, and my arm was in such horrible pain that I was out of breath. So, writing those letters when I did was inspiration. I’m glad I listened to that prompting because now I wouldn’t be able to do it.
James: Cristi has this Christlike ability to see the good in others. She has a deep testimony of her Savior and a great desire to do missionary work.
Cristi: I remember trying to bargain with the Lord. For a while, it was like, “Come on, heal me. I want to gather Israel!” I tried to boss God around, but it didn’t work. Then I thought, “OK, my name, Cristi, means ‘follower of Christ.’ While I’m still here, I want to bring as many souls to Christ as I can.
James: And that led to another prompting.
Cristi shared her challenges but also shared upbeat messages of faith.
Cristi: I started doing a social media message each day, a little message of hope and love. I called it “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive.” People started hearing about it. My sister-in-law was an atheist, but she said, “Will you start sending me your messages?” Over time she became a believer, and now she’s a member of the Church. And my brother started reading the messages. They helped him to find faith again. Now he’s active in the Church.
James: I was traveling a lot for work, going to small towns in Texas and Georgia. Cristi often went with me. We’d meet people we wanted to stay in touch with, and she would say, “Can I send you one of my messages? Then you can decide if you want to keep receiving them.”
Cristi: The number of people who wanted my messages kept growing. Now there are about 200. Some are Church members; some are not. For a long time, I sent out a thought every day, but now that’s getting harder and harder. I think the messages will be like a little history. When I’m gone, my family and friends will still have my witness about what I know is true.
James and Cristi both agreed, “We’re in this for eternity.”
James: What she has written will help us to keep an eternal perspective. She keeps telling me she’ll be watching over me, watching over us. We want to be an eternal family. That’s the real goal.
Cristi: It’s been seven years since I was diagnosed. As it gets harder to write my message, I sometimes call it, “It’s a Great Day to Be Grateful.” I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and His Atonement. I think of the words of the hymn “Count Your Blessings.”1 If we lose everything in this life, we still have the promise that families can be forever. We can always count that blessing, and it will lift us.
Editors’ note: Soon after this article was written, Cristi passed away with James at her side.
Cristi filled her life with hope and helped others to do the same.
Keep Striving!
No matter what she was going through physically, Cristi shared a spirit of hope, faith, and good cheer. Here are edited excerpts from a few of her many posts.

My father practiced what he preached. He didn’t just tell others to be self-reliant; we were taught to exemplify it as a family. We raised almost all of our own food. He always wanted a garden—he wanted a garden to eat from and a garden to smell. I used to pump the water by hand to water the garden, and also I learned to milk the cows, prune the fruit trees, mend the fences, and all the rest. I had two older brothers, who, I was convinced, took all the easy jobs and left me all the hard ones. But I don’t complain; it made me strong.

To find and rescue requires fitting a message to the individual. Let’s look at the case of Brother Jones. When his home teachers came, he often brought up a counter idea to every one presented by them. When a new home teacher and his companion visited Brother Jones and his wife and young son, the family wasn’t very responsive. During each visit the home teachers fell into a pattern of just talking about the weather. This worked out quite well, because Brother Jones was a weatherman! He was very intelligent and had an air about him which was rather intimidating to the home teachers. But they visited him regularly each month for several months.
Then in a personal interview with the elders quorum president, the home teacher was told to ask Brother Jones to quit smoking. The home teacher said, “Oh, I don’t want to ask him that. We’re not ready for that.”
But the quorum president persisted: “Next time you come back for an interview, I want a report on what he said when you told him to quit smoking.”
I might note at this point that the best way to do individualized teaching is for the quorum president and the home teacher to discuss what could be done for that family. Both should pool their knowledge and feelings about the family. Then, after praying about what the Lord would have done, the home teacher should be assigned to do it.
On the next visit the home teacher went to the Jones home with courage because he wasn’t just going, he was being sent. We always go with more courage when we’re being sent. That’s one of the real purposes of the priesthood interview—to assign home teachers to do specific things so that they can go as one who is sent. We recall how boldly Jacob taught, “having first obtained mine errand from the Lord” (Jacob 1:17).
The first part of the visit at the Jones home went about like the others had, and the home teacher became quite nervous. He knew what he should do, but he didn’t quite seem to have the courage to do it. After the visit was about two-thirds over, the home teacher finally took a deep breath, prayed to the Lord for strength, and then began to speak.
“Brother Jones, our message tonight is simple.” Brother Jones looked right into the home teacher’s eyes as the home teacher said, “Our message tonight is that we want you to quit smoking.” There were a few seconds of silence and then the home teacher spoke again, “And the reason we want you to quit smoking is because we love you.”
A sound of sincerity in that home teacher’s voice, coupled with the Spirit, let Brother Jones know that this man’s love was indeed the reason he made such a dramatic request.
Brother Jones could scarcely speak as he said, “Do you know how hard it is to quit smoking?”
The home teacher said, “I really don’t, but I know you can do it and you’ve got to do it. You’re needed in this Church, and the first step to get back into activity is to quit smoking.”
Sister Jones quickly broke in and said, “Honey, you can quit. I know you can quit.”
Brother Jones said, “Oh I would really like to quit smoking.”
They talked a bit more and then the home teacher said after a while, “We want you to start coming over to Church.”
Brother Jones said, “Oh, I can’t do that. I’m not even active.”
The home teacher quickly said, “You’re active. I’ve seen you walk around this block holding the hand of your little boy, telling him about the birds and the bushes. That’s the highest form of activity in the Church—just to teach your own children.”
Not in a rebellious tone, Brother Jones then simply said, “I just can’t go along with organized religion.”
The home teacher replied, “Well, you could have family home evening at home. You could do it like we do and not be very organized. Then you wouldn’t be an organized religion. But you could say your prayers and use the family home evening manual.”
After that, the home teachers and the family prayed and the home teachers went away. Later Brother Jones told the home teacher’s daughter, “Your father is one of the greatest men I’ve ever met.”
That inactive man is now in a bishopric. But the teaching had to meet his individual needs. It came from the Lord through the home teacher to him.

A true story from the USA.
Edith listened to the pitter-patter of rain against the window. Drip, drip, drip.
She frowned. It had rained all day, and the sky was gray. It was cold and sad outside. Kind of like her.
She sat on a bench in a quiet corner, tugging on her itchy black dress. Her shiny new shoes were black too. She wished she was home instead of at the funeral place.
Her older cousin, Savannah, sat down next to her. “How are you doing?” Savannah asked. All her family had traveled to be at the funeral this morning. Everyone wore black clothes and looked sad.
Edith shrugged. “OK, I guess.” She didn’t really want to talk. Her dad had died a few days ago in an accident. She felt all twisted up inside thinking about it. She missed him so much.
Savannah reached an arm around her, and Edith leaned in. She was grateful for her cousin. But why did God have to take her dad away from them?
“Is God mad at me?” Edith asked.
Savannah frowned. “Why do you think that?”
Edith looked at her shoes. “He took my daddy away.”
Edith felt tears in her eyes. She looked up to see Savannah wiping away a few tears of her own.
“Edith,” Savannah said, “Heavenly Father isn’t mad at you at all. He loves you and your family so much. Sometimes things happen that we don’t understand, but He always loves us.”
“Really?” Edith asked.
Savannah nodded. “Really. It can help to remember that you’ll see your dad again! Because Jesus Christ was resurrected, we’ll all be resurrected too.” She smiled. “And we can try to remember all of the things we love about your dad to keep him close.”
Edith thought about her dad. He loved talking about Jesus. He had the best smile and the funniest laugh. He gave the best hugs. And he always cheered her up when she was feeling sad. Suddenly, she felt warm, like she was getting a hug right from her dad.
She looked up. “That helps a little. But I’m still sad.”
“It’s OK to be sad. I’m really sad too,” Savannah said. “We all miss your dad a lot.”
Edith thought about something she had learned in Primary. “Heavenly Father can help us when we’re sad,” she said. “Can we say a prayer right now?”
Savannah nodded, and they folded their arms.
“Heavenly Father, thank Thee for Jesus and His Resurrection,” Edith said. “Thank Thee for always loving us. Please take care of my dad. Please help us to remember him and keep him close in our hearts. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
Edith opened her eyes and took a deep breath.
When they walked out of the building, it was still cold and rainy. But now there was a tiny ray of sunshine peeking out through the gray clouds. It still seemed sad outside, but now, it felt just a little bit hopeful too. Kind of like her.

We decided to cook someone dinner. We made a dinner of baked pasta that we cooked ourselves and helped our mom make the spaghetti sauce. We buttered and heated the bread. After our mom finished the rest of the dinner, we took it to our neighbors. They were moving and their kitchen was all packed up. They were so happy to have the yummy meal. It made us happy to help them.
Tyler, Ashley, and Nicole G., ages 7, 7, and 3, Arizona

Just when Flora and Ezra were beginning to grow closer to each other, they learned that they would be separated for two years. Ezra received a call to serve in the British Mission. He and Flora were excited about his opportunity to serve, and they “talked about their relationship. They wanted their friendship to continue, but they also recognized the need for Ezra to be a devoted missionary. ‘Before I left, Flora and I had decided to write [letters] only once a month,’ he said. ‘We also decided that our letters would be of encouragement, confidence and news. We did just that.’”5
In approaching the mission call this way, they exemplified a truth Ezra would teach the Saints many years later: “When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities.”6
As Ezra approached the end of his mission, he and Flora looked forward to seeing each other. But Flora “did more than anticipate the immediate prospect of spending time with him. She truly looked forward—to his future and his potential. … She was happy with Ezra’s apparent desire to settle on the family farm in Whitney, Idaho. However, she felt that he needed to finish his education first.”7 In her effort to help him do so, she joined him in putting God first. Less than a year after he returned from his mission, she surprised him by telling him that she was going to serve a mission herself. To learn more about her decision, see pages 10–11.

Trent sat high in the oak tree, dangling one leg over a thick branch. When Jared and Tom called to him from below, he didn’t even hear them. He was daydreaming about a book he had been reading. His Grandma Jessop had given him Pioneer Children for his birthday. After reading the book for a while, he had left it on his bed and climbed the tree to think about the pioneer children and their amazing experiences.
One boy in the book had saved his two little sisters when their house and fields caught fire. Another had found food for his family because his father was away fighting in a war.
The stories told about the many dangers that the pioneer children faced—bears, coyotes, starvation. Trent wished that he had lived then. He would have met the challenges! He could scare away coyotes and bears. He had learned in Scouts how to make a cave in learned in Scouts how to make a cave in the snow where he could keep himself and his little brother warm if they got lost, just like a girl had done in one of the stories. He would share a piece ot bread with a hungry child, even if it were all he had.
But it would never happen to Trent. His mother could buy him anything he wanted in the market—any type of bread, fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the year, even treats.
Finally, the voices below broke through Trent’s reverie.
“Trent! What’s the matter with you?” Jared called. “Have you gone deaf or something?”
“No. Why?”
“We’ve been shouting at you to come down,” Tom said.
“What for?”
“Who knows? We’ll just walk around till we find something to do.”
I’m sure you will, Trent thought. Jared and Tom were his best friends, but lately they were often into some kind of mischief. Trent climbed part of the way down the tree and then dropped to the ground.
“What were you doing up there, anyway?” Jared asked.
“I was thinking about this book I’ve been reading,” Trent answered. “It’s all about—”
“A book!” Jared sneered. “Don’t you have anything better to do than read books?”
Trent looked searchingly at Jared, trying to see beyond the dark eyes and freckles that he had come to know so well. Tom, too, was almost as familiar as a brother, although he had moved into the neighborhood only six months ago.
“What’s wrong with you, Jared?” asked Trent. “You used to like to read. You used to like the other things I like too.”
Jared just ignored Trent’s question.
“Hey, look,” Tom said, pointing. “Here comes Reggie. Let’s have some fun with him.”
Trent winced.
Reggie was working hard to pedal his bicycle up the hill, sweat gathering on his forehead, a paper sack held tightly in one hand. Reggie tried his best, but he just couldn’t do a lot of things very well, and he attended a special class for slow learners.
“Hey, you,” Tom said as Reggie neared them, “stupid kids like you aren’t allowed on this street. You’ll have to go back around the other way.”
Reggie stopped pedaling and put his feet to the ground. He looked around, confused.
“What’s the matter?” Tom went on, “Don’t you know the way?”
Jared giggled. Reggie was older than they were. He was bigger, too, but he looked afraid.
“What’s in the sack?” Tom asked.
“Candy.”
“Oh, let’s see,” Jared said, grabbing the sack away from Reggie. “Maybe you have my favorite kind of candy in there.”
Jared dumped out the candy, and he and Tom began dividing it between them.
Reggie blinked a few times, and Trent saw tears in his eyes. “My daddy gave me the money,” Reggie quavered. “I earned it.”
“Ha!” Tom jeered. “What did you have to do to earn it? Tie your own shoelaces?”
“Button your own shirt?” Jared added.
Trent felt tears starting in his own eyes. He didn’t want to go against his two best friends, but he knew what he had to do. “Stop it!” he shouted.
Tom and Jared looked at him, surprised. Even Reggie looked surprised. Trent grabbed the candy out of his friends’ hands.
“Come on,” Tom said. “We’re just having a little fun.”
“Well it’s not much fun for Reggie, is it?” Trent asked as he handed the sack with candy back to Reggie.
“No,” Reggie said, wiping the tears off his cheeks.
“Come on,” Trent said, his hand on Reggie’s shoulder. “I’ll walk with you.”
As they walked, balancing the bike between them, Trent and Reggie talked. They talked about bicycles, and Reggie told Trent about his new puppy.
When they waved good-bye, Trent felt good about what he’d done. He realized that although he hadn’t faced starvation or bears, as the pioneer children in his book had, by acting against his friends to help Reggie, he had acted with courage too. It was just another kind of courage.

For the first few minutes everyone was quiet and shifted in their seats, just like I’d expected. I sat as still as possible, staring at my hands in my lap, listening as the fire popped and crackled and everyone breathed. Then I heard a rustle, and someone stood up. I didn’t look to see who it was. But once I heard his voice, I knew. It was John Caldwell, the star football player. Big John, scary John, John who had been gone all summer so he could work out some problems and had just come home.

He cleared his throat. I could hear his feet shuffle nervously in the dirt.

“I don’t know where to start,” he said. “I’m not too good with words, really. But I have something to say that you all need to hear.

“The last year of my life has been really rough. One night I felt really bad. So bad I didn’t think I wanted to see the morning. That feeling scared me a lot, so much that I did something I hadn’t done since I was a little kid. I got down on my knees.

“I was scared to pray, almost too scared to even try. I wasn’t sure if there was a God, and if there was, I didn’t know why He’d want to listen to me. But I needed to do something. Anything.”

“I don’t know how to explain it, really,” he said. “I don’t know what to say except that it felt like a blanket. I didn’t even have to try to say the right words. I just got down on my knees, and I could feel Him, and He was all around me. Right then, I knew everything would be okay. Somebody loved me, even if I didn’t even like myself, and for the first time I felt like I had the strength to go on.

“Now I want to make something out of my life. I still have a long way to go, but there’s one thing I can say without a doubt. I know there’s a God. He watched over me that night, and He’s been with me ever since.”

I was running the last quarter mile to the high school when a bit of gravel worked its way into my left shoe, bringing me limping to a halt at the curb. I yanked off my shoe and dumped the pea-size rock on the pavement. I glanced down the street and saw my cross-country teammates approaching a block away. We were finishing up the last leg of our afternoon workout.
“You run like the wind, man.” A slightly slurred voice startled me.
I turned to see a slovenly dressed man grinning at me from under the elm tree at the corner. I noticed immediately his missing front tooth, his vacant, bloodshot blue eyes and his long, straight blond hair hanging out from under a dirty, faded baseball cap. Catching the faint trace of alcohol in the air, I pushed myself to my feet to hurry on.
“Like the wind,” he repeated. His grin widened. “Or maybe,” he added, “you run more like a breeze.”
I brushed him off, figuring the guy was probably too wasted to walk the 200 yards to the track, much less try to run.
“For your information, man, I was the cross-country state champion here in Snowflake,” he said. “No one could beat me. I was a wind nobody messed with. I wasn’t just a little breeze.”
His comment rankled me even though I knew the alcohol was speaking more loudly than the man.
Several days later I saw the man on the same corner. He flashed a grin and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. “Hey, man. You’re still at it,” he called out, waving at me as I passed. “I’ve had too much to drink or I’d pace you.”
The next Saturday morning Dad and I were in the yard raking the leaves out of the garden and trimming the bushes when a beat-up ‘74 Ford pickup rattled to the curb. A woman with stringy brown hair was driving. On the passenger side a man sat slumped with his baseball cap pulled down over his face. The woman climbed from the truck. “Are you interested in us hauling your clippings away?”
Dad set his rake down and considered the offer.
I returned to my work when someone called out, “Hey, if it ain’t the breeze!” I looked up. I recognized the man inside the truck as the guy by the school.
“The breeze is raking leaves today.” He smiled. “We’ll haul you and your old man’s trash to the dump for $25. My rock-bottom deal to a fellow runner.”
He turned to the woman and was about to speak when he saw Dad. For a moment he stared, his mouth hanging open. He looked from me to Dad and then back to Dad. “Sam Davidson!” he said in obvious amazement. “This kid’s your son?”
Taken back, I glanced toward Dad, who stood surprised and a bit embarrassed. “You remember me, Sam?” he asked Dad.
“Rex?” Dad questioned. “Rex Manning?”
He laughed, stepping to Dad and pumping his hand warmly. “Summer,” he announced, turning to his wife, “we’ll haul their stuff for $15. This is Sam Davidson, the skinny kid that chased me to the state championship. And this is his son. What’s your name, kid?”
“Joseph.”
“He looks like you, Sam.”
Dad agreed to Rex’s deal, and Rex and his wife drove off.
“You know him?” I asked Dad.
Dad stared after them. “I knew him. We ran cross-country together. Rex Manning.” He said his name with respect. “What a guy!” he whispered. “I hate to see him like that.”
“Could he really run?” I questioned, my doubt obvious.
Dad chuckled, remembering. “Twenty-three years ago he was cold sober, trim, and as gutsy as they come. He could run forever and hardly break a sweat. I would have had two gold medals had Rex not beaten me when I was a junior.”
“That’s the guy who beat you your junior year? What happened to him?”
Dad looked away and heaved a sigh. “What happens to a lot of guys?”
The following Wednesday I had a meet in Holbrook. My top challenger in the state was Dennis LaDuke, a kid from Holbrook. I led LaDuke over the entire course. Maybe that was my mistake. With the finish line less than 200 yards ahead of me, LaDuke made his move and beat me by three seconds.
“You’re barely at midseason, Joseph,” Dad said, trying to console me that evening. “All you have to do is shave three and a half seconds off your time.”
“You know how hard that can be, Dad?” I grumbled.
“You need a Rex Manning to push you,” Dad remarked.
“What do you mean I need a Rex Manning?”
Dad smiled and explained how he and Rex had worked out together on the same team, both shooting for the gold medal at state. Rex was a year older and had been running since he was a boy. He shared every running secret he had with Dad. He wanted Dad to be good too. Days before state, Dad spoke bluntly to Rex. “I appreciate your helping me, Rex, but aren’t you afraid you’ve made me too fast?”
Rex had laughed. “Sam, I want you fast—faster than anybody. The faster you are, the harder I run. When we race, you’ll push me and make me a champion.”
“You might figure wrong,” Dad pointed out.
“Sam, I know how fast you run.” He grinned. “I’ll run a little faster.”
Dad looked at me. “When I ran that last race, I broke the old state record. But Rex was two strides ahead of me.”
A couple of days later I was warming up when I spotted Rex leaning against the elm tree. All during my workout I had thought of LaDuke and those three-and-a-half seconds. I’m not sure I was actually serious when I first panted over to Rex.
“Hey, man, you still pounding the pavement?” he greeted me in his jovial way.
“Dad said you were the best runner he ever knew,” I said.
Rex’s smile faded. “That was a long time ago, kid. I’ve had a whole lot of booze since then.” There was genuine sadness and regret in his simple confession.
“Dad said you helped him run faster than everybody.”
“Sam was fast. He beat everybody—but me.”
“Help me run.” I didn’t smile. “Only one guy, Dennis LaDuke, is faster than me.”
A gray shadow dimmed Rex’s features. “I’m a loser, kid. I don’t run no more. I drink too much. Sometimes I can’t even walk.”
“Just help me cut a few seconds off my time.”
Rex didn’t answer. He just stood there solemnly, ignoring me as though I had never spoken. After a moment I jogged away from him, leaving him to his memories and his hurt.
The following Monday I trotted out to the track to warm up. Rex Manning was sitting in the bleachers. He stood and waved as I ambled over to him. The first thing I noticed was that he was sober. “You going to help me shave those three-and-a-half seconds from my time?”
Rex snorted. “We’re taking off ten seconds so you can beat everybody—including this LaDuke.”
At first Coach Spaulding was a bit hesitant having Rex around. But one day at the track changed that impression. Rex ceased being an old, out-of-shape drunk. He became an expert.
Rex worked at one of the mills outside of town and was usually off by 3:30. In the past it had been his practice to stop at the bar on the edge of town after work. But once he started coming to workouts, he postponed his stop at the bar and headed directly to the track. A week later, Rex took me to a wash that cut along the west side of town. Sinking into the soft sandy wash bottom up to my ankles, I waited for Rex to tell me what to do. He sat in the shade of a cedar and ordered me to do wind sprints in the sand. It didn’t take long before my tongue was hanging out and sweat was pouring down my face.
But seeing my exhaustion only increased Rex’s intensity. Soon he had me racing through the cedars toward a steep knoll a mile away. He gave me instructions: On the west side of the knoll I would find a narrow path that zig-zagged to the top of the knoll. I was to take that path and race up and down the knoll five times. From a distance it didn’t look very steep, but once I reached it and started challenging that knoll, I discovered that my efforts in the sandy wash bottom had been a mere warm-up for the rest of the afternoon.
By the end of that first day, exhaustion took on a whole new meaning. That night at dinner I whined to Dad about what had happened.
Dad looked across the table at me. “Sounds like Rex still has his old drive.” He smiled.
“I’ll bet he never worked like he made me work today.”
Dad set his fork down. “Who do you think made those trails you jogged on this afternoon, Joseph? Nobody worked out like Rex. I know. I tried to keep up with him.”
The next afternoon Rex was at the track. He became my personal coach. He was as regular as the three-thirty bell. He still stopped occasionally at the bars after practice, but he was always cold sober at three-thirty. I worked out with Rex every day right up to the state meet.
Several days before the meet, Dad knocked on my door and I invited him in. He studied me for a moment. “Joseph, I want you to know something before the race Friday.”
“I’ve always wanted you to win this race.” He took a deep breath. “But, Joseph, during these past few weeks I’ve come to see something that means more to me than your winning Friday.” He paused. There was a mist in his eyes. “I appreciate what you’ve done for Rex. I used to see him stumbling down the street. I tried to ignore him. I wanted to remember him another way. But yesterday I ran into Rex at the store. We talked.” Dad smiled. “He’s proud of you, Joseph. I could see some of the old Rex. I saw hope instead of despair. If you win Friday, that will be wonderful. But the real victory, the one that means the very most, is the one you’ve already won with Rex. I want you to know that.”
Rex showed up late for the next day’s practice, but when he arrived he came with his blond hair cut short, his face clean shaven, and wearing a fresh pair of jeans and white T-shirt. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” I joked when he strolled up.
“Well, kid, I figured you deserved to have somebody with a little class coach you.”
At the end of practice as I told Rex good-bye he shook my hand. “Good luck, kid.” There was excitement in his eyes. “The boss gave me the day off to see the race.”
“You’re going to Payson tomorrow to watch me run?” I asked, grinning.
He looked away. “If I can get there. My truck broke down this afternoon.”
“Davidson,” Coach Spaulding interrupted, “remember the van’s pulling out at six o’clock in the morning. We want to get to Payson early.”
An idea struck me. “Coach,” I spoke, stepping away from Rex, “hey do you think we could take Rex with us? There will be plenty of room in the van.”
Coach Spaulding looked at me, hesitating. “I don’t know, Davidson. I don’t know if I can count on Rex to be sober.”
“Coach, Rex has been cold sober for over a week. He was planning to go, but his truck broke down. I’d like to have him there, Coach. I promise he’ll be sober. I need him there.”
Coach Spaulding glanced in Rex’s direction. “All right,” he finally conceded. “He’s been helping you out. I suppose I can take him as a volunteer coach. But,” he added, “if I smell just the faintest trace of …”
“You won’t smell anything,” I cut him off. “Thanks, Coach.”
“Rex, you’re going with us in the van,” I announced excitedly. “You’ll be an assistant coach.”
For a moment my announcement didn’t register, and then suddenly his face crinkled into a grateful grin. “Thanks, kid. I’ll be here before six,” he committed. “And tomorrow LaDuke can have that silver medal all to himself,” he added with confidence. “Tomorrow nobody beats Sam Davidson’s kid. Not while I’m around.”
As I stood there witnessing Rex’s excitement and confidence, I knew that regardless of the outcome of the race the next day, Rex and I had already secured a gold medal victory.

I carried a tray of food, prepared by my mother-in-law, into a cluttered and dusty home. The sole occupant sat where she always sat, on a big armchair positioned so she could see out the window. Her swollen legs were stretched in front of her and her cane, which she used only with great effort, leaned against her arm. She smiled when she saw me, thanked me for the food, and apologetically asked who I was. As I sat next to her and listened to her stories, I was filled with warmth and peace.
Three years later, I was on the floor with my two young children, bouncing them on my legs and singing a racehorse tune. Only a few feet away, my kitchen was in disarray and toys were scattered across the floor. I suddenly felt a reassurance from the Spirit that I was right where I needed to be. Warmth and peace flooded my soul, filling its worn edges and giving energy where there was none.
Another two years forward, I was lying on the bed. A pile of laundry was visible on the floor, and a stack of papers littered the desk to my left as I fed my newborn son for the fourth time that night. I brushed my fingertips against his long lashes, felt his soft bald head, and was thrilled when fingers curled around the lace of my shirt. I was so filled with warmth and peace that I didn’t even mind that I was sometimes awake at three in the morning.
In each of these cases, the Holy Ghost was with me, telling me I was in the right place and doing the right thing, and in each of these cases, I was in a messy home.