I Made It, You Can Too

Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts. Psalm 145:4

Childbirth is a glimpse of what we as women can do when circumstances call for courage. My first labor was more than twenty-four-hours long and was followed by an emergency C-section.

I had just read the story of women who traveled the Oregon Trail in covered wagons. They would stop the caravan for only a moment for the delivery; then if there were any problems, like a child dying during birth, they would dig a grave between the wagon wheels and place the baby in it so wild animals wouldn’t be able to dig up the body. The wagon wheels traveling over the grave would pack down the dirt. A woman could never return to that place of pain—she was forced to go forward.

Even at times when God shows us change would be beneficial, it can still seem too hard, the burden too heavy. But I think back to the women who have gone before.

In the Bible the young widow Ruth looked to her mother-in-law for a plan to go forward. She trusted Naomi so much she moved with her to Israel. She declared, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16, NIV).

Booker T. Washington, the renowned abolitionist, was sold as a child. His mother would finish her labors in the field, walk twelve miles to the farm where he was living, hold and rock him to sleep, and then walk twelve miles back home before sunrise. With an example of courage like that, it is no wonder that he went on to lead the charge against slavery.

When the burden feels great, look to the examples of those who have gone before.