Bike Riding, Book Writing, and Eternal Life

by Rebecca Talley

My husband will be accompanying all the priests in our stake on a mountain biking/camping trip in Moab, UT in a few weeks. We've been trying to go for a bike ride regularly to help him get ready for this trip.


We ride our bikes for 5 miles on the country roads near our home. The ride includes some small hills that seem much larger on a bike than in a car :). It's nice to be out in the warm weather away from the computer, phone, and TV and just enjoy the beautiful scenery as we bike around this loop.

I've found while riding my bike that if I look ahead and see the upcoming hill I get overwhelmed and think I can't do it. I feel discouraged and wonder why I ever started on the ride in the first place. I've discovered that if I keep looking just ahead of me, I mount the hills without any problems. It's kinda like the "one foot in front of the other" idea. If I only think about the immediate road ahead of me and see it in small chunks I feel much more capable of finishing my bike ride.

It's the same way with writing a book. I've published three novels and yet, sometimes, I wonder how I will ever write another book. How will I ever finish it? The task is too daunting. I'll never make it to the end. When I look at the entire project, or the entire bike ride, it overwhelms me and I feel discouraged. But, if I take writing a book bit by bit, chunk by chunk, before I know it, I'm finished. And, as with concluding the bike ride, I can look back on what I've accomplished and feel good about it.

And to take this even further, it is the same with life and trying to reach the goal of eternal life. If I look at the whole thing, all the things I must learn and accomplish, all the faults I must fix, all the flaws I must overcome, it is overwhelming and I wonder if I'll ever make it to the celestial kingdom. Yet, taking it in small pieces, focusing on overcoming one fault at a time, I can accomplish my goal. I can look back and see how far I've come and feel good about it and that propels me onward. Eternal life isn't meant to come in one step. It is a series of baby steps throughout life just as writing a book or riding 5 miles on a bike is a series of small chunks that are doable one at a time.