Y'know, sometimes a mission feels like poor Pickett's Charge. You've been asked to do something impossible but you go out with a fire ready to make the impossible a reality. Then you hit that fence and the impossible laughs you in the face and you're pretty sure that it's going to stay impossible today. So do you turn back? Do you stop? Do you keep going? That's when you decide if you're going to be a disciple of Christ. Actually, that's when you should be remembering your choice to come out on the battlefield at all and you remind yourself that you've already made that decision. So what does a true disciple do? You square your shoulders, you get up. Like Ginger would say, "pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again." You jump that fence and charge the hill. Now there's a few differences in being a missionary and fighting the Civil War. First, you already know who's going to win the war. Second, when you reach the top of that hill you're greeted by family and friends and you keep going with your life (well, that was true for them too, but they were also technically prisoners of war, right?). Third, you wouldn't keep charging past your brothers and sisters, the whole reason you're in that battle is to help them get to the same hill (man, this hill is very useful as a metaphor, but I think I'm mixing). I think most important is number one and the fact that you have the most powerful and loving being in the universe walking every step of that hill with you.
See? Bridging. The gospel can be related to everything. Why? Same reason we share it - because it's true.
(and for the record, the one ancestor who I know fought in the Civil War served in the Fourteenth Iowa Infantry under General Grant. He was a prisoner in Andersonville and after he escaped, returned twice to bring out more prisoners. He survived the war to return home to Illinois. Thank you gggGrandpa Wendt. We remember.)
Love
Sister Clayton
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