Me, Lehi, and the kid from Kentucky

There was a news "byte" a few years ago about a young man in Kentucky who had been "run off the road" and had "survived in the wilderness for 4 days, until he crawled up to a road and stopped a car to get help." I was intrigued with this 'byte' and wanted to hear this survival story. However, when they showed the interview with the victim, I was no longer quite so impressed, and actually had a good laugh. Let me preface this with the fact that I obviously don't know the whole story, but what I do know has given me something to ponder about.

This guy was probably about eighteen or nineteen. When he was run off the road, his car went down into a gully and stopped near a stream. His hip became dislocated, which I'm sure is painful. This guy said he laid there for three days, surviving on stream water, and calling out to the cars that he heard passing on the street above him. He said he was sure that someone would have heard him if their windows had been down. Finally, on the fourth day, he decided to crawl up to the street, which he did and was quickly helped by some motorists.

I'm sure that he believed he was seriously injured. It did, however, seem ludicrous to me to think that he spent three full days laying there in pain, hoping that by chance some passing car would have it's windows down and hear his calling, before he took the initiative to get himself up to the road (which couldn't have been that far away if he could hear the cars, and figured that they could hear him.)

What made me laugh was the image of this kid, with a relatively minor injury, laying within sight of the road and hollering, "Help!" for three days, rather than crawling up to the road and getting help on the first day. Maybe you don't find that funny. I hope you don't, because that would mean that you are a much better person than I am.

However, I have actually applied this story to my life, and unfortunately, found that I do the same sort of thing. I experience unexpected inconveniences, or offenses, which I'll term as my minor injuries. Yet, rather than "suck it up" and do what needs to be done, I figuratively lay there, nursing what I believe to be terrible injuries, hoping-- on the off chance-- that someone might respond to my cry for help. When all the while, true help and healing and rescue are within my grasp.

I "went off the road" a few years ago, down into a gully of self-pity and, really, of self-deceit; imagining that I had received a serious injury. I nursed my fictitious injury for a long time before my wonderful husband happened to hear my cry for help, and put my dislocated thinking back into place. It's strange how a fictitious injury can create a need for true healing. I've come a long way since then, but I sure wish I had crawled up to the road in the beginning rather than wasting time and causing true injury.

I am reminded of a verse in the Book of Mormon, toward the beginning of Lehi's Tree of Life vision: And after I had traveled for the space of many hours in darkness, I began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to the multitude of his tender mercies. (1 Nephi 8:8) I suppose it's possible that Lehi, and this kid from Kentucky, and myself are not the only ones who tend to "travel for the space of many hours in darkness" before we remember to ask for help.