Footprints in the Snow

Have you ever walked in a snow storm where the snow is piled high?  Where it is bitterly cold, it's dark, and you have a difficult journey ahead of you?  Have you ever wanted to quit?  Give up?  Wait for a better time when the sun is shining and everything is perfect?

I've looked at the snow and I've felt discouraged.  The snow is too deep.  It'll get into my boots.  I'll get too tired.  I don't want to do it.  And just before I could admit to defeat at this insurmountable obstacle, my companion said "I'll go first and make a trail for you."

A trail to follow?

It is much easier to go stomping through the snow when someone else has gone the way before.

She led the way and broke through the challenge that so easily discouraged me.  With her footprints stretching out before me, it was much easier to get through the snow.  I still had effort that I needed to give, but she had already gone through the difficult part of it.  She showed me that it could be done, and gave me the courage I needed to walk the path myself.

There is someone else who has gone through it all before us.  Jesus Christ has walked the path of most resistance and won.  In Alma 7:11 it says "And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people." Christ has suffered everything that we have ever felt.  In doing so, he paved the way for us to walk.

Life is hard.  Often times it's dark and you don't know where to go.  It's easy to just want to give up, turn back, try again when things are in a prime condition.  But we can't.  We must keep going forward.  Sometimes it's dark, scary, cold, and it looks like there is a giant obstacle that makes the whole effort impossible.  In those times, remember that there was one who walked the way before you did.  One who broke through that wall and is beckoning to you to keep going.

The pathway is before you.  You can see it clearly through prayer, scripture study, and attending church.  You can feel peace near the temple.  You can find guidance in your life through the gentle promptings of the Holy Ghost.  Take those first steps, and you will see clearly the steps that come after.  Life is not impossible because we have that path.  Take it, and don't deviate from it.