The door slides open after she knocks. Tentatively she pokes her head in, “I’m supposed to take lunch to my dad but I’m not sure of where to go.”

This niece of mine – she’s tall, slender, with dancer’s legs, best friend to my daughter. Her father has his own farm in Washington where they grow potatoes. This week they come to visit, to make memories with cousins.

“I’m getting ready to take lunch out too. I’ll hop in with you and show you where to go.”

I let her take the wheel as we climb into the suburban. “You’ll learn better if you’re the one driving.” We head down the road a couple of miles. She slows down. “This is where I stopped before. I followed my mom’s directions but I couldn’t see any fields.”

“Keep going,” I tell her “an eighth of a mile more up over the rise.”

As the hay barn comes into view ahead she looks left to see the hay field. Giving an embarrassed laugh she turns to me. “Did I really stop when I was so close? I didn’t know! I couldn’t see!”

Isn’t that the way life is so many times? We trudge along, pushing forward, only to give up when we are so close. Do we know how close we really are? When our view is obstructed, even momentarily, we tend to think it is too hard, too much. We lose sight.

We stop to watch a truck being loaded. Green gold stacked and counted. Her dad and my husband laugh about something as they walk to us, ready to take a break in the hundred degree heat. After they eat we leave with a wave.

“You know,” she starts, “I trusted my mom’s directions. I guess I just didn’t trust myself, that I was following them correctly so I gave up.” We come back to the spot where she stopped, facing the opposite direction now. I look toward home.

“You didn’t give up, Katie. You still did it right. Instead of driving around not knowing where you were going, maybe even getting lost, you were humble enough to know you needed help and you knew where you could find it.”

She’s quiet for a moment, contemplating. “I did, didn’t I? I knew where to look for help.”

Do we know when we need help? Do we know where to look for guidance? Are we willing to seek it? Do we recognize the help He sends?

“And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.” {Doctrine and Covenants 84:88}

And mine angels round about you to bear you up.

“God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face. “[N]or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man [or woman or child] upon the face thereof to be saved.” (Moroni 7:36) On occasions, global or personal, we may feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal.” {Jeffrey R. Holland, The Ministry of Angels}

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