A few years ago national attention was fixed on a deep, dark cave in the mountains near where I live now. A team had entered the cave to do some research. Although every precaution had been taken to make it safe, one young man was separated from the team and lost in the depths of the cave.
For several days a rescue team worked around the clock, searching almost everywhere in the underground cave. With each passing hour chance of finding the young man inside the cave became smaller, and people had a lot of guesses. Perhaps he had simply run away. Or maybe he had stumbled out some other entrance and was now lost in the mountains. Or perhaps he was already... well, nobody wanted to say it. But everybody thought it. Everybody, that is, except the young man's parents.
"That wasn't a choice in our opinion," the young man's mother said." Finally we would find him—safe and alive. We were certain of that."
There was little reason to those who were familiar with the cave said it had been completely searched-several times. Common sense suggested that time was running out and that other choices needed to be considered—like when to say "enough".
But like Kris Kringle says in his famous book A Miracle on 34th Street, "Faith is believing in something even when common sense tells you not to do." And the young man's parents had faith. They wouldn't give up, and they wouldn't let anyone else give up, either. And sure enough, the young man was found—hungry, thirst and afraid, but healthy.
How did the young man manage to stay a live in the cave?
"I've never stopped believing that someone would find me," said the young man.
