Stay on the Trail

The family went skiing last week while the kids were out of school. I stayed home sick and Emma got lost. Jeff was helping Marissa when he turned around and Emma was no where in sight. He told Katie to get down the slope with Marissa and he would meet them at the bottom - he was going to go find Emma. He got to the bottom and still no Emma...His phone rang once with an out of state number, he ignored thinking it was work, it rang again. Hmmm "Hello" "Mr. Jackson this is the ski patrol are you missing your daughter Emma?"

Here is her story: I was skiing along and decided to take the witches cove trail (side trail through the trees). I was skiing and turned on a different trail than I ususally take and the snow started getting deeper and deeper. Then I dropped one of my poles. I stopped and sat down and yelled "Help Me!" But no body came. I started to cry and scream some more, but there wasn't anyone there. I looked up and I could see the blue sky and there were trees all around me. I finally decided to take my ski's off and climb up to get my pole. After I got my ski's back on I skiied to where I thought the main trail was and I finally came out of the trees. I found a ski patrol guy and asked him if he had a cell phone. He called dad and dad asked if I could get down to American Flyer (the main lift at base of mountain) and I said I could do it. It was really scary!

After Emma told me the story, I asked her what our family moto is. She said "Stay on the trail". I asked her why it was our family moto? "Because if we stay on the trail we all get back to Heavenly Father."

As I retold the story to Kathy a few days later, I realized the gospel symbolism. Life is like all of us skiing down the mountain. Sometimes we get distracted and take what we think are short cuts or side trails because they might be more fun. But quite often we can get lost on those side trails and fall to the ground in frustration, crying out for help. We have to use the tools we've been given (faith and enduring to the end) like knowing how to take our skiis off and on and using our poles to get out of those hard situations. When we've made some serious mistakes we sometimes need to get help from the "Ski Patrol Guy" or our church leaders and teachers. They help us to establish a line of communication with our Heavenly Father so that he can help us get back down the hill to be with him again.

I later talked with Emma about this symbolism and hope she will always remember the story of how she got lost on the trail.