One Step

I have been thinking a lot about fog lately. Not because much fog actually exists in Utah, because it's a rarity. Maybe it's because fog always makes me think of the dark, wintery nights of my childhood in the valley where fog was our version of a white Christmas.

Fog is an interesting phenomenon. Basically it's the equivalent of being inside a cloud. It's completely traversable, but often it looks completely solid. I have a memory of riding in the car one particularly foggy night when we truly could not see more that ten feet in front of the front bumper of our station wagon. We could see so little that my mom had my brother get out of the car and walk in front of it as a reference point. By doing so, we doubled our visibility distance. As we crawled along, hoping there was nothing dangerous ahead, the fog dissipated foot by foot with each bit we moved forward, and the world behind that wall of mist was revealed. We couldn't see the entire road, but enough landmarks emerged from the nothingness that we were able to keep going. Finally, the shadowy outline of our house appeared and we were safe at home again.

As I was remembering this story today, a verse from the hymn "Lead Kindly Light" came to mind:

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

So often in life, we want to see the whole picture, but one step at a time is all we get. We have to take that step and hold on in faith that we will be able to see enough to take another one after.

Sometimes, if we could see the whole scene, we wouldn't want to take even that first step, like in the story of a woman who told her mother, "I can't stand having sixteen more of those [radiation] treatments."

Her wise mother responded, "Can you go today?"

"Yes."

"Well, honey, that's all you have to do today."

One day. One step. One moment at a time. That's all we have to do. Life has an uncanny ability to become overwhelming, but when we take a piece at a time, it becomes manageable.

I feel hugely blessed in life right now, but I know that trials will surely come my way again. Life isn't always (or even often) easy. As I prepare to become a mother in the next few months, I've begun to think about the massive undertaking that this is. I'm thrilled about it, but I'm also sure there will be days that will overwhelm me as I try to figure out how to raise this little boy that is being sent to me. I may not know how he'll turn out as an adult, and I may not even know how I'm going to get dinner on the table with everything else going on, but I can still enjoy the moment I'm in. My goal for this year is to take one step, one day, one moment at a time. By doing that, I hope to savor the present more and look to the Savior for guidance about where and how to move forward.