I had the opportunity to spend my Thanksgiving down at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. On one of those days, I toured the Wright Brothers National Monument. I had been to the Outer Banks numerous times, but never felt led to see this place, until this year. Having just come off an arduous adventure on the Appalachian Trail of which my sights were set on a goal, I was interested to learn of these two brothers whose goal it was to have a machine powered flight. And I was amazed to learn of their tenacity, their willingness not to give up, no matter how difficult the task, their sheer energy and will to accomplish a feat that only lasted a mere 80 plus seconds, but a feat that changed our nation and the world.
The above monument speaks of a goal “achieved by dauntless resolution.” Oh how we need that in our lives. Each of us has dreams and goals, something we wish to achieve. But it can take years of hard work. It may look as if it will fail (one of the brothers, having witnessed failure after failure, said not in 1,000 years will man be able to fly – but yet he went on trying to make it happen!). One must persevere to see the fruit come forth. And we can take heart in those who have gone before us, like the Wright brothers. They had a goal of flight. They worked day and night on that goal. They suffered setbacks, one after the other. But they never gave up. And they saw their dream finally realized one December day at Kitty Hawk, at the foot of a sand dune called Kill Devil Hill. May stories like this give you courage to press on, no matter what.