Words of encouragement if you're in a wilderness

I reached deep into the archives for one of my favorite posts about our time touring the places where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived. She continues to be a big inspiration in my writing, and I hope you enjoy her messages of encouragement as much as I do. 

Laura Ingalls Wilder Home in Mansfield, Missouri

Some time ago, I wrote here about thesummer our family spent zigzagging this country in a borrowed RV.  If you'd like to read more about those adventures just click on the Dream Summer tag at the end of this post. Two of ourfavorite memories from that time is of visiting the Ingalls family homestead inSouth Dakota as well as the Mansfield home in Missouri where Laura IngallsWilder wrote the Little House books.

In doing researchfor another project recently, I came upon a quote from her, which I know I’veread but had forgotten. She wrote, “We had no choice. Sadness was as dangerousas panthers and bears. The wilderness needs your whole attention.”

We face many kindsof wildernesses.

And as we traversethem, we are likely to encounter a plethora of predators.

Change is awilderness for many. Letting go of the familiar to embrace the unknown canleave us feeling as if we’re heading out over a vast prairie without GPS, much asLaura and her family did. It’s scary. We grieve over what we leave behind, andwe tremble over what may lie ahead.

But the wildernessneeds our whole attention, for in it lies our future.

In the presentupheavals are the building blocks of what is yet to be, and if we allowourselves to get stuck in our grief, we will miss them.

Laura knew thewilderness.

She’d lived inuncharted land as a child, and then as an adult, she and her husband, Almanzo,lost almost everything except their land to the stock market crash of 1929--anew kind of wilderness. What would they do with Laura in her sixties andAlmanzo in his seventies? Through her writing, their daughter, Rose WilderLane, became their sole support in a depressed market.

Some think the Great Depression, along with the deaths of her mother and sister, may haveprompted Laura to put down her memories of growing up on the vast prairie.Laura had established herself as a columnist for a local paper in the Ozarkssome years before, but hadn’t written the column in several years. She hopedonce more to make a little money through her writing.

In 1932, Harperand Brothers published, Little House in the Big Woods. Laura was 65 years old. Manymore books in the series followed, and as we often hear, the rest is history.

Laura faced hernew kind of wilderness with the same courage she’d had when teaching alone in aone-room schoolhouse on the prairie far from home. She simply used the giftsand talents she had. As she once wrote, “The real things haven't changed. It isstill best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to behappy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.”

I heard the callto write long after many are already established in their careers. Often, I’ve wonderedwhy God waited to clarify this for me, because here I am at a point, when someare closing their laptops and planning European vacations, still hard at work.Still feeling I’m just beginning. Still wondering about a breakthrough. Stillpraying as Beth Moore says to be smarter than I am, fearing I’ve lost too manybrain cells to too much anesthetic in too many surgeries, which now take bothhands to count.

I don’t have manyanswers, but what I do have is inspiration. Stories like that of Laura Ingalls Wilderkeep me hoping through rough times and years of not understanding. 

In my own personalwilderness, Laura’s story is one that helps me fight the beast ofdiscouragement.

One more quotefrom Laura, this one from The Long Winter, “Laura felt a warmth inside her. Itwas very small, but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in thedark, and it burned very low but no winds could make it flicker because itwould not give up.”

“Doyou see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all theseveterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, startrunning—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep youreyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study howhe did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilaratingfinish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross,shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, rightalongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over thatstory again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. Thatwill shoot adrenaline into your souls!” (Hebrews 12:1-3 The Message).

(Edited repost) 

 

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