To Enjoy the Journey
Spoken Word Classic

During this year we commemorate 75 years of continuous broadcasting. Today’s message was delivered by Richard L. Evans in 1955.

When our children are young and very dependent upon us, sometimes perhaps we think what we would do if we were more free from responsibility. And then the time comes when we are free from that kind of responsibility, and in looking back we find that it was one of the sweetest, most precious parts of life.

We should enjoy our children when we have them around us. They won’t always be with us. It is wonderful to be part of things, to be needed, to be wanted—and to enjoy the journey. Not any of us can plan fully for the future, because the unexpected always enters in. There are almost always obligations and worries—there are accidents and illnesses—the unexpected bills—the budget that has a way of exceeding itself—the things that cost more than we counted on—the unfinished things that always need to be done. And then add to this, all the other problems and perplexities of young parents—problems of employment, problems of providing, problems of preparing and building for the future.

But every time of life has its problems. Youth has its problems—and so does age. But we live through each part of life only once. We don’t go back. And instead of wishing that any part of it were past, instead of living always for something that is never now, we should find some satisfaction and accomplishment in every hour.

And to you in your younger married years, with all the problems of young parents: It is probable that as you live out all the long years of life you will never find anything essentially sweeter than the tight circling of a baby’s arms around your neck; or a child, with his hand in yours, walking with you; or a boy’s arm around your shoulders in the quiet confidence of an evening hour.

Don’t wish for each part of life to be past. Despite all the problems and pressures, enjoy the journey. It’s a good world and a good life, and it is up to us to find the goodness in it, to find what we can of heaven here, until we arrive, with our loved ones, at that heaven which is hereafter.

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© 1955 by the Richard L. Evans family. Used by permission

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