Never Despair. But if You Do...

 Yesterday when I found myself pacing with distraction and distress, I remembered the adage I have kept in my Bible: "Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair."

It's what I did one summer, many years ago, on a day of one of my very worst memories. Despair was wreaking havoc with me and my family, but that was the day we had to can about 60 quarts of corn. 

I remember the heartache working its way clear to my fingertips, the heavy load we carried as we husked, steamed, packed into jars, and canned for 1 1/2 hours each batch of 7 quarts of sweet corn. 

It was a terrible day of despair. But we worked on. We finished the job, cleared away the husks and swept away the silky tassles from the porch. Jar lids snapped as they sealed. We went to bed, still in despair, tired, and work worn. 

But we got through that day and many more. We worked on in despair, and finally the clouds cleared and joy came again.  

At the school house near Laura Ingalls' family's homestead near De Smet, there was a very old school desk with words engraved in the metal bracing of the desk seat, "Never Give Up."

As I was told recently, "There is too much at stake."

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote, "When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."

 

Never give up. Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair. As surely as tides flood in, they also go out, and as surely as the shower falls, the rainbow forms in the clouds.