Learning How to Ride

The memory of that day is slowly fading away and I want to grasp it before it's gone. It was an important day for me. Maybe one of the most important days of my life.

I was six years old and it was a cold December morning. I had just received a new shiny red bike. I had tried to teach myself over and over how to ride. And over and over I failed. My mom, my cousins, and my dad spent time with my trying to go over the basics. I didn't get it. I desperately wanted to get it, but I couldn't.

She was frail and ill. She had very little strength left in her. A month earlier she was diagnosed with cancer and had very little time left. She watched me through her bedroom window as I tried over and over again. I'm not sure what was running through her mind, but she came to rescue me.

I was sitting on the porch when she greeted me. She told me how it broke her heart that she saw how I desperately wanted something and I couldn't achieve it. She told me that if I have faith, I can do anything I set my mind to. She explained to me that there would be a time that she would be gone and that she wanted me to always remember this one little thing. If I seek help through my Heavenly Father, and if I have faith, then it will happen.

That day I learned how to ride my bike. That day was also the first time I learned how to speak to my Father in Heaven. That cold, December morning, I learned the important principle of faith.