Sometimes We Have to Run

January 25, 2010
Yesterday was our ward conference. The Stake President gave an excellent talk, but one of his stories really stood out to me, and I wanted to share it. It took almost an hour to find the story, but it was well worth it.

Susan Madsen tells the story of Agnes Caldwell in the Willie Handcart Company. They were caught in heavy storms and suffered terrible hunger and cold. Relief wagons came to deliver food and blankets, but there were not enough wagons to carry all the people. Even after rescue, the majority of the people still had to trudge on many more miles to the safety of the valley.

Little nine-year-old Anges was too weary to walk any farther. The driver took notice of her determination to keep up with the wagon and asked if she would like a ride. She tells in her own words what happen next:
"At this he reached over, taking my hand, clucking to his horses to make me run, with legs that...could run no farther. On we went, to what to me seemed miles. What went through my head at the time was that he was the meanest man that ever lived or that I had ever heard of.... Just at what seemed the breaking point, he stopped [and pulled me into the wagon]. Taking a blanket he wrapped me up... warm and comfortable. Here I had time to change my mind, as I surely did, knowing full well by doing this he saved me from freezing when taken into the wagon".

The driver of that relief wagon made the little girl run as far and as fast as she could to push blood back into her frozen feet and legs. He saved her legs, possibly her life, by letting her help herself. Gayle M. Clegg, "The Language of Love," Ensign, May 2002, 67

Sometimes we are forced to run, longer and faster than we could imagine, but just maybe, it is saving our lives.