A friend sent me this, just had to share 🙂
“It was the ninth week of SEAL training, which is referred to as Hell Week. It is six days of no sleep, constant physical and mental harassment and one special day at the Mud Flats. The Mud Flats is in an area between San Diego and Tijuana, where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana slues – a swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you. It is on Wednesday of Hell Week that you paddle down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing cold mud, the howling wind and the on going pressure from the instructors to quit. As the sun begins to set that Wednesday evening, their training class was ordered into the mud. The mud consumed each person till there was nothing visible but their heads. The instructors told them they could leave the mud if only five of them would quit – just five – and all could get out of the bitter cold.
Looking around the mud flat, one individual noticed that it was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over eight hours until the sun came up – eight more hours of bone-chilling cold. The chattering teeth and shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything. And then, one voice began to echo through the night – one voice raised in song! The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two, and two became three, and before long everyone in the class was singing! They knew that if one person could rise above the misery then others could as well. The instructors threatened them with more time in the mud if they kept up the singing – but the singing persisted. And somehow, the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer and the dawn NOT so far away!
If you learn anything in your moments granted on earth, it IS the Power of Hope! The power of one person – Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela, a young girl from Pakistan named Malala – and YES, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior! When you are up to your neck in mud – tired and shivering from the cold of the world, attempting its best to try to make you quit – start singing Praises to your Heavenly Father – thanking Him to give you Hope, that no matter how tough it gets – He IS ALWAYS there to help your life have Joy and Peace. Know that He IS your Hope, your Comfort, your Light in the darkness – your Son come up! Be His Example – change the world! In Jesus’ Name. Thy Will be done. Amen. “