When the mountain trail you thought would take you downhill suddenly ends in a great snarl of thorny bushes, and it’s nearly dusk, you know there’s trouble ahead.
當(dāng)你本想沿著山間小路下山時(shí)，突然發(fā)現(xiàn)眼前卻是一片荊棘叢生、灌木纏繞的景象，而此時(shí)薄暮冥冥，你知道，麻煩來了。

That’s the situation my husband Jun and I faced years ago when we decided to summit the mountain at the center of his rural village in Zhejiang. And I never imagined that, in getting lost there, I would find something far more important.
我的公公婆婆住在浙江的一個(gè)農(nóng)村，村子正中有一座山，幾年前，當(dāng)我們決心要攀上山頂時(shí)就遇到這種狀況。但讓我沒想到的是，這次迷路讓我找到了更為重要的東西。

While we had always wanted to reach the top, which drove us to hike there in the afternoon, we hadn’t planned for such a precarious descent. But our experience hiking around the village and its hidden network of unofficial trails should have prepared us for this possibility. How many times had we followed a well-trodden dirt path, only to have it stop in a thicket of weedy grass or a maze of bamboo? In fact, the very trail we used to climb the mountain had also disappeared into the woods, forcing us to improvise a way through a dense cluster of bushes and trees.
登頂?shù)南敕M繞心頭已久，于是我們決定當(dāng)天下午便開始攀登，卻沒有料到下山的路這么危險(xiǎn)。不過，鑒于此前在村周圍遠(yuǎn)足的經(jīng)歷，以及這里未經(jīng)開墾的隱蔽的山間小道，我們應(yīng)該提前預(yù)料到這個(gè)狀況。有多少次我們沿著一條常有人來往的泥濘小路前進(jìn)，最后卻駐足在叢叢雜草或是茂林深篁之中？其實(shí)，我們上山的這條小路剛進(jìn)入山林也消失不見了，所以我們只得勉強(qiáng)從茂密的灌木樹叢開辟出一條小道來。

However, the summit appeared deceptively neat, with a clearing and what seemed to be a far easier trail winding down the other slope of the mountain. We thought it would be a fast, straightforward trip back, until the trail petered out and left us stranded in the remnants of abandoned fields swallowed up by layers of weeds and crawling thorns, stretching down the mountain as far as we could see.
不過，山頂看起來很平坦，而且山的另一邊有條蜿蜒的下山小路清晰可見，貌似比上山小道更好走。我們以為，沿著這條路下山又快又直截了當(dāng)。但是這條小路卻慢慢消失了，我們被困在一片雜草叢生、荊棘遍布的荒地之中，順山而下，一直延伸到我們的視線盡頭。

If we wanted to make it back home, we would have to blaze our own way out of there, in the dark.
我們想順利回家就得在夜色中開辟出一條道來。

As a lifelong hiking enthusiast, I had logged hundreds of miles on trails in parks across the US, my home country, but never at night. And yet there we were, trapped on the side of a mountain in near darkness with no established trail at all.
作為一名畢生的徒步愛好者，我曾在我的祖國——美國的公園小路上行走了數(shù)百英里，但從未在夜里走過。然而現(xiàn)在我們竟然被困在了山上，天色幾乎一片黑暗，而且四周沒有一條經(jīng)過開墾的山路！

I felt scared, beyond just the fact that walking ahead meant facing a prickly field of thorns. I worried we might take the wrong step and tumble down, or fall into something even worse than those thorns, since we couldn’t see the ground. How could we possibly move forward?
我感到害怕，不僅是因?yàn)橄蚯靶羞M(jìn)意味著要面對一片荊棘叢生的山地。我們看不清地面，所以我擔(dān)心會不會走錯一步路而摔倒在地，遇到比荊棘更可怕的東西。我們該怎么往前走呢？

“Just take one step at a time,” my husband told me. “Don’t worry.” It was his way of encouraging me to have faith.
“一次只走一步?！蔽业恼煞?qū)ξ艺f：“別擔(dān)心?！彼褪沁@么鼓勵我獲得信心的。

Faith is something I’ve struggled with in life, and being on that mountain was a test for me. It took all of my resolve to lift my foot up and place it among those thorns. But it turned out OK. And so did the next move, and the one after that. With each small step of progress, I found myself gradually gaining confidence -- in our ability to make it home, and in ourselves.
生活中，我是一個(gè)缺乏信心的人，在山上發(fā)生的這件事是對我信心的一個(gè)考驗(yàn)。我下了巨大的決心才抬起腳向荊棘叢中邁去，踩上去后卻發(fā)現(xiàn)是安全的，下一步、再下一步也是。每前行一小步，我的信心都在逐漸增加——我對我們成功回家的能力有信心，也對我們自己有信心。

Sometimes, it’s incredible how, in the midst of something fearful, we can still find the strength within ourselves to move on and to believe, even if it’s just through one tiny action at a time.
有時(shí)候，我們在恐懼之中依舊能尋得隱藏在內(nèi)心的力量，去相信，去前進(jìn)，即便一次只是前行一小步而已，這是多么不可思議啊。

When we eventually spied the soft white glow of windows from a house beside the road, announcing our return to civilization, waves of relief washed over me. While I told my husband we were fortunate, I also recognized it wasn’t luck that led us out of the darkness. We did it. And knowing that gave me a little more faith.
當(dāng)我們終于看到從路邊房屋的窗戶透出來的柔和白光時(shí)，我知道我們找到了回去的路，我感到如釋重負(fù)。我跟丈夫說，我們很幸運(yùn)，但我也知道帶領(lǐng)我們走出黑暗的不是幸運(yùn)。我們做到了。為此我又多了一份信心。

翻譯：陳美君（實(shí)習(xí)）
編審：董靜 丹妮
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About the author & broadcaster

Jocelyn Eikenburg is a copy editor for China Daily. She has written extensively about cross-cultural topics, including for The Wall Street Journal and The Huffington Post. A US native, she has called China home for over nine years and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.