Description
We Cannot Cross This River Alone!
How many times have we encountered the insurmountable and impossible in our mortal journey? I love this story as it illustrates what can happen when, in faith, we hand over the insurmountable to the God of the Impossible.
In 1859, William and Rachel Atkin and their two children journeyed across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley as part of the Rowley Handcart Company. Most handcarts had numerous people or families assigned to a cart to help draw the cart, but with the Atkin family it was just William and Rachel. The Rowley Handcart company has been noted in our history for the starvation that the emigrants endured. Thus, it is no surprise that William shares the following in his journal,
“When [our train] arrived at the Big Sandy [Wyoming] we were in a starving condition. At this place was a mail station with 6 or 8 men. One of the men asked if there was a butcher in the camp, I told him I was a butcher, and he said he wanted a beef killed. I told them I was on hand and asked them to give my wife something to eat while I was dressing the beef. They gave her and our child all they could eat, and they gave me a loaf of bread and quite a large piece of meat for my work.”
Meanwhile, the handcart company journeyed on toward the Green River crossing. William completed his work late in the day. His family camped alone on the plains. The next morning when they reached the Green River, they discovered to their dismay that the Company had already crossed and moved on without them.
This crossing was extremely dangerous, even for a large company. The River was wide and running swift and deep. The two of them stood on the bank of the river and looked into its murky, roiling waters. According to William’s diary,
“I said to my wife “We cannot cross this river alone.” She said, “No, but the Lord will help us over.” At these words, my heart seemed to leap for joy, and I said, “Yes, he surely will,” and we arranged our children and other things in the cart, and then knelt down on the ground, in all humbleness, and in the sincerity of our soul we told our Heavenly Father that we were doing all in our power to keep his commandments to gather to the land of Zion and now we had come to this river, and we could not cross it alone, and we knew that all power was in his hand, and we relied on him to assist us over.”
And what happened next is a most remarkable demonstration of how faith actually operates. William said,
“We started into the stream, and as we did so we could see the deep water just ahead of us, and the next step we expected to step into the deep water, but when we took that step, the deep water was still ahead, and thus it was all the way across, and to our surprise we had not wet the axle tree of our cart, and were truly thankful to our Heavenly Father that we landed on the other bank in safety.”
Whether it be into the darkness or into the deep water, faith always requires that we move forward—one step in front of the other.
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWJ8-QXB
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWJ8-QXY
Copyright Glenn Rawson 2023
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