Please Forgive Me If I Fail

By Theda Woodard Farnsworth

For many years my father did not acknowledge the existence of God, but he did love God’s handiwork as seen in the wonders of nature.

Every summer we enjoyed a family outing, not at some fashionable resort at the seashore or in the mountains, but a truly nomadic adventure into the untamed realms where nature ruled supreme. Sometimes we hiked into the hills with our supplies in our back-packs. Other summers we would follow old trails with a packhorse. Still other times we traveled with a covered wagon as far as possible from civilization.

Of the many happenings that I remember when thinking of these delightful outings, the incident I remember best happened one summer on Puget Sound in Washington.

A cunningly hewn, 30-foot Indian war canoe with a high animal head for the prow was our home and our method of travel for that summer. We were truly “roughing it” and had become tanned, tough as leather, and happy as could be.

Toward the close of this very enjoyable outing, we had pulled the canoe up onto a sandy beach and had been lazily lying around on the sand just passing the time in complete relaxation. Then the sudden inspiration came to us to move on somewhere. It was unanimously felt, so although it was late afternoon, we all got into the canoe, spread our blankets on the floor for those who wished to sleep, and pushed the canoe toward the shore on the other side of the bay.

The canoe was so wide that my father had equipped it with oars. We each rowed with just one oar, like the galley slaves of olden times. We were rowing along contentedly, paying little need to our exact destination, when suddenly we sat up and took notice. The shore seemed to be rapidly leaving us. We were caught in a rip tide and going swiftly out to open sea. My father, having been a ship’s captain and steamboat man knew there was trouble ahead. A storm was coming, a big storm!

He had mother and the two children sit in the canoe bottom to balance it as much as possible and then said, “Now, you four kids (meaning my brother, two sisters, and myself) row, but save your strength because you’re going to need it before we’re safely out of this fix.

Soon the storm began; the waves rolled higher and higher and the distant hills to which we must row were becoming misty and purplish with the on-coming night. My father, an expert boatman, was guiding the canoe between the great waves that now foamed all about us. Just one great wave over the side of the canoe would be enough to finish us.

Still, on we rowed and then came the night. Few words were spoken. The wind was in our hair and the salt spray dashed against our faces. We moved our oars carefully, fearful lest one of the waves bury them and throw us into the sea.

On and on we rowed, our arms becoming weary. But we dared not stop. My arms were numb. They had become mere mechanical devices that made the oar go forward and back.

Through the wind came my father’s voice: “Is everything all right?”

“All right,” was the reply, and on through the night we crept, barely moving against the wind and tide.

Hours passed before the dashing of waves against the rocks could be heard above the wind and the roar of the incoming waves. Ahead loomed the darkness of the cliffs toward which we had been rowing. The sound of the breaking waves on the rocks would have to be our guide. We could not turn in the wild tumult of those giant waves on the bay without capsizing, and we had to go ahead as fast as possible to have headway enough to move between the waves as they tumbled forward. But toward what were we moving? Although accustomed to the dark by now, we could discern outlines but nothing definite. We came closer.

I remember distinctly my father’s words: “Please forgive me if I fail this time. There’s one chance in ten thousand that we will see the sunrise again, and it is that chance I must take now. Are you ready?”

“Ready,” was the reply.

Straight toward the ominous cliff we rowed. I did not look ahead anymore but just rowed hard. Soon the canoe turned quickly.

“Oars in!” shouted father.

We quickly drew in our oars. A soft grating of sand could be felt. The canoe scraped to a stop. Our heads buzzed as the wind whistled through trees far above our heads but did not touch us.

We felt nothing but the large swells raising and lowering the canoe. No one spoke for a while. Then, as if without knowing that he spoke aloud, my father said, “Truly there is a God.”

We had to remain in the boat until dawn. I dropped off to sleep from sheer exhaustion, but father and mother kept watch. The tide might go out and leave us in a dangerous plight.

When next I opened my eyes, I saw a cozy little cove a little larger than the canoe, which was then resting on sandy bottom. A wall of rock all but surrounded us, with a break just large enough for the canoe to pass through into this shelter. Had father’s eyes been less keen, or his hand less capable with the paddle, none of us would have remained to tell the story. For kilometers up and down that coast, the cliff was otherwise unbroken.

To pass through that storm in a canoe that tossed about like a peanut shell, and in the dark come directly to that one possible shelter that was barely large enough to enclose the canoe, was truly a thing that could not be attributed to anything but the care of our Heavenly Father.

That experience began a long search in our family for the true church of Jesus Christ. The search ended with my mother, my sisters, and myself becoming members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My father came to believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but he died without being baptized.

Many times I have recalled that stormy night on Puget Sound with feelings of reverence and awe. It was out on that foamy, turbulent sea in the darkness, almost helpless, that my father realized that God rules in the universe.