The Little Bear Who Lost His Way

Every now and then nature quietly writes a story better than I ever could. This is one of them.

Can nature teach us about resilience?

I believe it can. This true story of a young black bear cub becoming separated from his family became a reminder that perspective often comes before direction. Sometimes the greatest lessons about courage, calm, and finding our way home are quietly written in the natural world.

A couple of evenings ago, I looked out beyond our backyard and found four unexpected visitors.

A mama black bear and her three recently weaned cubs had discovered the deer corn and decided to stop for a snack.

The three little ones stayed fairly close together, but one of them...well...he seemed a bit bolder than the others. Curious. Adventurous. The kind that might someday give his mama a few extra gray hairs.

We'll call him Wanderlust.

While his siblings stayed near Mama, Wanderlust wandered a little farther toward the creek. Not terribly far...just far enough.

Then something startled the bears.

The two little cubs scampered up a nearby tree. A second later, Wanderlust darted up another tree a few yards away.

Everything became quiet.

After a few minutes, Mama decided whatever had caused the concern was gone. She began making those soft grunting sounds mama bears use to call their cubs. One by one, the two little bears climbed down and followed her down a familiar bear trail leading into the deep woods.

Wanderlust never got the memo.

When he finally climbed down, his family was gone.

He crossed the creek and let out a loud cry.

It wasn't the playful little sound he'd been making earlier.

This was different.

He was lost.

And I think he knew it.

The cries became louder.

More frequent.

More desperate.

Poor little Wanderlust.

I kept waiting for Mama to appear.

She didn't.

His siblings didn't either.

For the next thirty or forty minutes, all I could do was watch...and yes, I'll admit it...worry about the little guy.

Then something changed.

The crying stopped.

Quietly, Wanderlust crossed back over the creek.

He made his way to the tallest pine tree nearest the corn pile and climbed...and climbed...all the way to the tippy top.

There he sat.

Perfectly still.

He sniffed the air.

He looked around.

He listened.

For several minutes, he never moved.

Then, lickety split, he shimmied back down the tree and took off running down the same trail his mama and siblings had taken earlier.

He disappeared into the woods.

And I disappeared into my own thoughts, hoping he'd find his family.

Later that evening, I happened to glance back toward the corn pile.

Mama was there.

Two little cubs...

Then a third.

There was Wanderlust.

Safe and sound.

Back where he belonged.

I've thought about that little bear several times since then.

Isn't life a lot like that?

Sometimes we don't intentionally wander away.

We simply get distracted.

We become focused on something that catches our attention, and before we realize it, we've drifted farther from where we should be.

Then life startles us.

We look around, and suddenly what once felt familiar doesn't anymore.

We feel alone.

Uncertain.

Maybe even a little afraid.

Our first instinct is often to panic.

To keep moving.

To keep searching.

To keep making noise.

But what struck me most wasn't that Wanderlust got lost.

It was what he did next.

He stopped.

He climbed to a place of safety.

He became still.

From the tippy top of that pine tree, he wasn't reacting anymore.

He was thinking.

He was using what God had already built into him.

Once he had perspective, he didn't run in circles looking for a brand-new path.

He returned to the last place he knew his family had gone.

Sometimes I think we need to do the same.

When life leaves us feeling lost, frightened, overwhelmed, or out of alignment, our greatest need isn't always to do more.

Sometimes we simply need to climb above the noise.

Become still.

Take a breath.

Look around.

Remember what we know to be true.

Then return to the path that once led us where we were meant to be.

Maybe that's what finding our way really is.

Not discovering a new trail.

But remembering the right one.
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Sometimes getting back on course doesn't begin with taking another step. Sometimes it begins with becoming still long enough to remember where the trail was before we wandered.

👣 🐾

📷 Every photograph in this article was taken by me. Occasionally we are gifted with the opportunity to see bears. Watching them has been one of the unexpected gifts of living in the mountains, and on this particular day, one curious little cub gave me far more than photographs—he gave me something to think about.