Don't Let the Beetles Get You Down

On the slope of Long's Peak in Colorado lies the ruin of 3 gigantic tree. Naturalists tell us
that it stood for some four hundred years. It was a seedling when Columbus landed at
San Salvador, and half grown when the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth. During the course
of its long life it was struck by lightning fourteen times, and the innumerable avalanches
and storms of four centuries thundered past it. It survived them all. In the end,
however, an army of beetles attacked the tree and leveled it to the ground. The insects
ate their way through the bark and gradually destroyed the inner strength of the tree by
their tiny but incessant attacks. A forest giant which age had not withered, nor lightning
blasted, nor storms subdued, fell at last before beetles so small that a man could crush
them between his forefinger and his thumb.
Aren't we all like that battling giant of the forest? Don't we manage somehow to survive
the rare storms and avalanches and lightning blasts of We, only to let our hearts be
eaten out by little beetles of worry-little beetles that could be crushed between a
finger and a thumb?