Ever Onward

We're celebrating Pioneer Day (aka the Twenty-Fourth of July) a little early around here. The Hometown annual carnival was yesterday and today because weekend. We enjoyed the works: the fried bread, the fishing pond, and the erstwhile photo booth.

We also went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Pioneer Day concert. The stars were Matthew Morrison and Laura Michelle Kelly, both of whom I saw in Finding Neverland on Broadway. Also, since the concert focused on the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oscar Hammerstein's grandson was there to narrate. I was skeptical of his presence at first, but he was actually really, really good at narrating.

The concert kicked off with more traditional Pioneer Day fare, including one of my favorite hymns, "Come Come Ye Saints." A couple of lines hit me hard tonight: "Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard? 'Tis not so; all is right."

I'm guilty of thinking my lot is hard. Which, honestly, it kinda is. Remember how I was rereading The Work and the Glory? I think one of the purposes of a story like that is to lead you down the path of, "Oh my gosh, the pioneers had it so rough! I could never do that!"

I'll level with you, though—except for the parts involving snow and frostbite (which many a pioneer didn't have to deal with), coming West sounds like something I totally could have done. I'd be tired, yes, and uncertain, and I'd probably experience some fear and anxiety over not knowing exactly what was in store for me. But it would be a delight to be given a task so cut-and-dry: Take this wagon. Go West until you reach the Salt Lake Valley. No matter how tedious that would get or how hot the sun would beat or how much my feet would hurt, it sounds so much easier than what I'm facing now.

If I were a wagon-toting pioneer, I wouldn't have to try to figure out my career. I wouldn't have to figure out where God wants me. I wouldn't have to strain under the struggle of trying to make time for family, friends, work, church callings, and me time. I possibly wouldn't have to worry about boys in any form at all; I would be too busy staying alive to care about confusing men who say one thing but do other things that don't match their words at all. I'd keep my eye on the western horizon and keep moving toward it, and with that sure direction I wouldn't feel so rudderless and discouraged.

But pioneerdom didn't happen for me. Either I wouldn't have been as good at pioneering as I think I would be or God had something else in mind. Sometimes that's hard to swallow. But as Matthew Morrison and Laura Michelle Kelly and Oscar Hammerstein III pointed out during the concert, difficult things usually aren't as difficult as they appear to be, and even if they are, they can be persevered through.