Anchors

I recently read the story of the Trapp Family Singers (The musical Sound of Music was based on part of this story.) and Endurance, the story of the Shackleton expedition. In each of these (auto)biographies, I was struck by the ability of the characters to press onward to meet their goals, or the goals God had for them regardless of obstacles encountered. Shackleton and his crew of 28 men were on their way to Antarctica to attempt the first crossing of the continent when their ship became frozen in pack ice. They drifted with the ice for almost a year, living in tents eating seals and penguins after their ship was finally crushed. They saved their ship's life boats and used them to sail to an uninhabited piece of rock, where Shackleton and a few others left them and sailed in one life boat 600 miles to the nearest inhabited whaling station for help. What??? Everyone survived! They were miserable and sleeping in rotting sleeping bags with frostbitten appendages, but they had the tenacity to survive. Why? Maria von Trapp and her family not only fled Austria at the beginning of the Nazi occupation leaving everything they owned behind (they were quite wealthy before the war), but they faced severe challenges making a living afterwards. They emigrated to the United States, learned to speak English on the way, and had to learn how to appeal to an American audience. The adjustments their family had to make to survive in a completely alien culture were difficult. There were many other immigrant families coming to the United States at that time, and many of them could not escape poverty. They clung to who they HAD been instead of trying to assimilate themselves and create something new for themselves and their families. The Trapp family looked forward with faith. Shackleton and his men looked forward with faith. Faith in a higher power is the most inspirational, strengthening, encouraging anchor.