There was once a young man who was invited, with a bunch of his friends, to go mountain climbing. He had never tried it before and although he was scared to death, he bravely went along with the group to a tremendous granite cliff. In spite of his fear, he put on the gear, took a hold of the rope, and started up the face of the rock. After a short while, he reached a ledge where he stopped to take a breather. As he was hanging on there, the safety rope snapped against his eye and knocked out one of his contact lenses. Well, here he was on a rock ledge, with hundreds of feet below him and hundreds of feet above him. Of course, he looked and looked and looked, hoping it had landed on the ledge, but it just wasn't there. Now, slightly panicky, his sight blurry, he was anxious and desperate to get to the top and mouthed a silent prayer Heavenward to help him to find his lens.
Eventually, he reached the top, where a friend examined his eye and his clothing for the lens, but there was no contact lens to be found. He sat down, despondent, waiting for the rest of the climbing party to make it up the face of the cliff. He looked out across range after range of mountains, and being a sincerely religious person, he thought, "Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me."
Finally, they walked down the trail to the bottom. At the bottom, there was a new party of climbers getting ready to start up the face of the cliff. One of them was adjusting his gear by the side of the rock cliff and suddenly shouted out, "Hey, you guys! Come here, you have to see this." As a number of people gathered around, they saw a startling sight: An ant was moving slowly across the face of the rock, carrying a contact lens that was double its size! All the climbers came over to look, including the grateful young man, and they all stood around marveling and joking about this amazing sight.
Later, he told over the story to his Rebbe and he agreed. "Sometimes we don't understand why Hashem causes us to carry a heavy load. Just like the ant undoubtedly had no idea what it was carrying - it wasn't food and he would have no use for it. But if we went along with the attitude that, 'I don't necessarily understand why it is I do what I do, but if Hashem wants me to carry this burden then I will,' we'll see that in the end it'll all work out for the best. Hashem doesn't always call the qualified, He qualifies the called!"
