Metaphor for Life

About two months ago I attended a half-day retreat for an organization I am in called Women in Engineering and Technology. This organization is made up of all of the girls who are majoring in an engineering or technology major at BYU. We had this retreat to help us get to know each other and talk about the difficulties of being in these majors. I had been to this retreat the past 2 years and was never effected like I was this year. This year, we went to Heber Valley Girls Camp so that we could participate in their team building activities that they offer to camp-goers.

The one activity that hit straight home was the Blindfold activity. We were given blindfolds and then instructed that as soon as we put them on, we were not allowed to speak. (You can imagine how hard that is for me). They told us that once we put them on, we should just sit and wait for someone to grab our arm and lead us to the maze. The maze was composed of strings tied to trees. We were to grab a hold of the first string they lead us to, and find our way to the end. The only instruction they told us was to "Choose the Right". I put on my blindfold and waited.

Once someone grabbed my arm I cautiously walked the way they led me. I was afraid that I would trip over something. Once they put my hand on the string, they let me go. I followed the string and reached an intersection. I picked the right, because that's what they told us to do. I reached another intersection, right again I guess! Then I hit a tree. I reached all around the tree, but it was a dead end. I immediately thought, "Oh, they must have messed up the course, I did everything perfect up to this point." I just sat there and waited. It took me about 2 minutes to realize that maybe "Choose the Right" wasn't to be taken literally each time. I decided to turn back and go left at the start. I crossed the first intersection, and before I go back to the second one, I bumped into someone. I decided to choose left at the second intersection instead. Somehow, I made the same mistake again and ended up at the dead end tree. This time I made sure I went the right way.


Then I kept following the course. There was no sure-fire way for me to choose which way was right each time, I had to find out through trial and error. Then I reached a string that turned into two. I decided that it must have been a mistake, so I just held onto both strings. After a few steps I discovered that the strings led to two different trees... I had to choose. The one string on the left felt like all the other strings up to this point and the other string on the right felt different... thinner and weaker. I decided to choose the right, and ended up at a dead end. I went back and decided that I should have stuck with the familiar string from before. I followed it, left, left, left and... back to the same two string split! What?! How?! I did the same thing about 3 times. Finally I realized that I had missed a new string tied to a tree after the first left. I went that way. A voice said, "You're going the right way". I had to remember if it was the same voice that told me to choose the right, and I decided it was. I decided to trust it.


Then as I was on this string I heard a new voice: "Leave the string and follow me". In my head I immediately thought "No! Hold to the Iron Rod!" I ignored that voice and kept going. All of the sudden I hit a branch about waist height. The string went under the branch. I needed to crawl under the arch-shaped branch and continue to hold onto the string. Once I maneuvered underneath it, I continued on. I think I returned to this obstacle from the other side and remembered that I had already done it before and didn't need to go back underneath, or I would be undoing what I did before, and end up having to redo what I did before. I turned back and found the right path. I finally reached a dead end and heard, "Welcome Home."

Somewhere in the middle of the maze I began to cry. Not because I was frustrated or lost, but because I got it. I got the message they were trying to get through to me. I got the message Heavenly Father was trying to get through to me. I am just like I was in this maze in real life. I was sent to this earth, blindfolded, sent into unknown territory, to find my way home.

When I reached the first dead end, thinking I had done everything right I just sat there and waited to be saved. I needed to take action and continue on, not just wait to come and be saved. The same is in real life, when you find yourself lost and not knowing what to do, you have to pull yourself out of the trough you are stuck in and Heavenly Father will help you.

When I kept making decisions on which way to go, I often made wrong decisions and had to turn around and go back. It is the same with our sins. When we make a wrong decision, we must turn around and undo what we did through repentance. We need to undo the wrong so that we can get back on the right path. We can't just will it be, and just appear on the right path, we have to get there by facing all of the wrong choices we made and undoing them.

Sometimes in life we reach two strings and attempt to hold on to both of them, but eventually we realize that we have to choose. We cannot follow Jesus's way and Satan's at the same time, we have to choose. Sometimes we get stuck in a bermuda triangle where we continue to make the same mistake over and over. The only way we get out of the mistake cycle is to choose to get out and not continue making the same mistakes over and over. If we continue doing the same things, we will continue getting the same results. If we want to make Heavenly Father more of a priority in our lives, we need to make a conscious decision and change our ways. Sometimes in life we put ourselves in the right conditions to hear the still small voice. Other times, we hear the tempting voice of Satan. Satan's counterfeit of the Holy Ghost. We must consciously separate the difference between their voices and choose the correct one. Sometimes once we go through a trial, we continue on our way and end up back on the other side of the trial we just overcame. We have two choices at that point: doubt the choice we made before and go back and end up no better than we were before, or to choose to learn the lesson that trial taught us once and for all. If we choose to keep going through the same trial, not learning anything each time we get through it, we really gain no ground.

And at the end of it all, Heavenly Father will hopefully greet us saying welcome home, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant"(Matthew 25:21).