Finding the Strength to Hold On

Finding the Strength to Hold On

Many years ago, when I was senior in high school, I had a brief, but terrifying experience.

My older brother was gone serving as a missionary in South America, and my two younger brothers, who are 10 and 12 years younger than me, were too small to help, so I went with my father to purchase and load up an old wood burning stove from a private couple who lived on the outskirts of town.  Now I don’t know if you have ever had to move a big, thick, metal wood burning stove before, but they are extremely bulky and heavy.  Depending on the make and manufacturer they can weigh between 300 to 800 pounds… and this one was down in the basement of the house.

 The husband of the house was away at work, and so it was left to my father and me to try and get it up the stairs and out onto a trailer we had borrowed to haul it home.  My Dad was in his late 40’s at that time, but still fairly physically capable and strong, and I was a strapping teenage football player who regularly lifted weights, so for some reason, we thought we were tough enough to give it a try.  It was HEAVY!  We come from some stubborn, Viking ancestry, so wisdom didn’t prevail as it should have.

We lifted the enormous and awkward weight of it and managed to get it around the corner and were, one agonizing step at a time lifting it up the stairs from the basement.  It took a coordinated effort to lift together and take the next step up.  My father was on the top and having to squat down and pull upwards to the step he was on, while I simultaneously lifted from below and then took a quick step upwards once the legs of the stove were resting on the next higher step.  Remarkably, we had made it about three fourths of the way up the steps when in the midst of the next lift, my father’s back went out, and he collapsed backwards onto the upper steps behind him.

Suddenly, the weight of the entire stove rotated a bit and tipped back towards me and I found myself in a most precarious and terrifying position.  Essentially, the upper portion of the stove was resting precariously on one leg of the higher step while I was holding a dead lift of the weight below as one corner of the stove top jabbed into the meat of my chest.  I quivered for a moment and then somehow stabilized the weight, with certainly nothing but fear for my life giving me enough strength to hold the load.

I will never forget my father’s face as he looked down over the top of the stove, in complete agony over the searing pain in his back, with his eyes full of horror at the situation I was in.  At any second, and even if I tried to adjust my grip or the position of my feet, the enormous cast iron bulk would have pushed me over backwards and certainly crushed me beneath it on its terrible descent to the bottom of the stairs.  It was all I could do and took all my effort just to hold my precarious position.

The lady of the house, who was watching from the top of the stairs gave out a little shriek, her eyes open wide in shock, and it was only the agonizing voice of my father who snapped her out of it as he cried out to her, “Go get some help!”

Of course we should have gotten help much sooner, but in that moment, there was no time for second guessing, or thinking “we should have used a moving dolly”, or anything else… it was now a complete focus on survival from one straining second to the next.  My Dad struggled to get up and attempted to help pull the weight forward toward him to alleviate my burden, but with his injury there wasn’t much he could do.  I remember him feebly pleading, “Oh, Eric!  Hold on!”

I don’t know how long it was that I teetered on the brink of disaster.  I just remember straining with every ounce of my strength, with legs and arms trembling beneath the load as sweat poured down into my eyes and a deep pain penetrating the flesh of my left chest where the corner of the stove was digging in, and knowing that if I relaxed or let up for even an instant, disaster would follow.  There was no room or way to step aside in the narrow staircase to try and jump out of the way, there was only holding the load for as long as it took or be crushed beneath the weight.

Looking back at it now, I am fairly certain there may have been some unseen angelic help in supporting the weight for the length of time which seemed to stretch on forever, but in the moment, I felt completely alone under the potentially crushing weight, which seemed a burden far too heavy to bear for even another agonizing second.  All I could do was suffer the weight and pain of it, as I looked up into my father’s pleading eyes which seemed to silently and prayerfully say, “Just keep holding on!”

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, the woman returned with several neighborhood men, who helped my Dad up out of the way and then mercifully pulled the burden away from me to better steady on the steps above.  The relief was overwhelming as I stood trembling and drenched in sweat.  They steadied the stove for several minutes as they discussed the situation, and allowed me a brief reprieve, but eventually we realized there was no way for them to get around or over the top of the stove to help from below.  So with their combined help from above, I once again had to help lift the burden from down below and we eventually made it up to the top of the stairs.

I actually don’t remember much after that about loading it onto the trailer or even getting it home into the house or what happened.  I think my mortal bodily systems were in a state of shock as the dissipating effects of the Adrenalin rush took its toll.

But as I look back on it all now, I realize how seemingly foolish it was to have logically thought we could have lifted such a heavy burden up the stairs on our own.  And it seems impossible that I could have sustained holding the weight for as long as I did without being crushed mercilessly beneath it.   But there are some parallels and lessons I now realize from that experience.

Firstly – we are often much stronger than we think we are.  Sometimes it may seem like we carry a crushing load that we cannot seemingly bear.  It doesn’t matter if it is emotional, physical, spiritual, psychological or whatever.  If we were to look and examine our situation logically, it may seem we cannot possibly endure the weight and strain of the situation.  But there are likely hidden reserves of strength waiting to be drawn out if we will but hold on a little longer with all that we have.

And more importantly, I cannot help but consider the lessons from this experience which relate (even if only in a very minor way) to our Savior’s incredible suffering in Gethsemane.  In my brief ordeal of several minutes, my body was wracked with strain and I was drenched with sweat and left with a deep bruise in my chest.  But for Him, the weight of all eternity rested upon his mighty shoulders with a strain that only He could bear… and despite His divinity, He sweat as it were, “great drops of blood falling to the ground.” (Luke 22:44)

Secular or logical thought might cause one to think that Jesus’ suffering for a few hours in a remote garden could not possibly relate to paying the price of justice for the sins of all those who would repent, but those who have turned their hearts to Jesus Christ find that He does indeed lift and carry our burdens and the weight of our sins, so that we might find forgiveness and redemption.

Just as I am sure that perhaps some unseen, angelic hands were steadying me on those stairs those years ago, Christ too had angelic support and companionship, although he was left to carry the weight and the burden all of Himself (Luke 22:43).

by Yongsung Kim

My father unfortunately was in a position where he was unable to help me hold the load, but his loving eyes never left me, and his imploring call of encouragement to “just hold on a little longer” until the ordeal was over, might perhaps resemble in some small manner, a loving Heavenly Father who withdrew His presence temporarily, so that the glory might go to His Beloved Son and the atonement completed properly.  But I am sure the Father’s loving gaze never left His son during His moments of terrible trial, while the ultimate price was paid for all humankind.

So whatever trial or challenge you may be feeling the crushing weight of in your life, just hold on a little longer.  Stay faithful and true and trust that the Lord will uphold you and lift the burden once the purpose of it has been completed.  And even if you cannot see an end in sight, we can trust that the Lord is fully aware of the suffering we experience, and there will come a blessed day, when “God shall wipe away all tears from (our) eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.” (Revelations 21:4)