It was a day I will always remember. It was a beautiful day in late spring in the eleventh year of my life, and the days of the Great Depression, because of the beginning of World War II, were ending. My father was seldom home, but that day, for some reason, he had the day off and we were enjoying it with him.

Near the middle of the day, my brothers and I were playing in the yard, and he was sitting in the shade of the two maple trees in front of the house when a buggy came around Hegira Ridge. Sam King, a man we knew well, was delivering the mail. Sam stopped and put something in our mailbox and, after waving to us, went on around Chestnut Grove Ridge toward the post office at Frogue.

One of us went to the mailbox and got the mail, a letter to my father. When it was handed to him, his expression changed dramatically. Then, he slowly opened the letter, and his expression changed even more. It was an unexpected letter of notification.

Looking up, he said, “Well, I’ve lost my job.” He paused and, after a moment, said, “Well, as hard as they are to find, I guess I’ll just have to look for another one.”

There are times when life hits us hard. Things change abruptly for the worse, and the bottom seems to drop out. But for two thousand years, it has been axiomatic, “We do not lose heart,” and that, in the worst of days, can keep us from giving up, or, as we sometimes say, from “throwing in the towel.”

Instead, we keep on going, and, in most cases, things take a turn for the better.

Howard Coop is a retired minister, author and religion columnist that contributes regularly to The Jessamine Journal. He can be reached at howardcooop@kudu4u.com.