Enough

Once upon a time, horses were my life.  I had no identity apart from them, no identity apart from riding, showing, training.  I was that little girl that always wanted a pony for my birthday.  The only difference was that I actually got one.  And I still have her, 16-17 years later.  She'll probably live to be 40 just for spite.  

There were a lot of lessons learned from the back of a horse.  When you're riding a 1,000-pound animal, you better have a pretty good idea of what you want and when you want it.  Horses are not dumb animals and they know when they can take advantage of your fears and hesitancy.  A few tumbles down their backsides taught me that lesson.

But one of the hardest lessons I ever learned took me nearly 10 years to figure out.  

I started riding when I was about 9 years old.  Some trainers had moved into the area, having just built a new facility, so I started taking lessons with them.  I would never use the word "natural" when it comes to describing my riding abilities.  I wasn't one of those people who intuitively picked up on proper riding form from the get-go.  I had to have it drilled in me, time and again, lesson after lesson, year after year.  After a year or two, I started showing in some academy shows and down the road, I eventually started showing with the amateur and professional ranks.  

Summer after summer, I would go to horse shows, entering this class and that class. Junior Exhibitor.  Open.  Show Pleasure.  Country Pleasure.  Western Pleasure.  Morgan English Pleasure.  Equitation.  Maybe over 50 classes that I was in over the years. 

But do you notice what's missing from the picture on the right?

There isn't a single blue ribbon.

And no, I don't have them stashed on the side somewhere just to prove my point.

There are literally no blue ribbons of mine to be had.

I never won.

In all those years of showing, not once did I leave that arena with a blue ribbon and garland of flowers draped around my horse's neck.  Even if there were only two entries in the class, I still managed to lose.

I poured my heart and soul, blood, sweat, and tears, into that sport, convinced if I did everything just right, I would hit the big time and then actually be "somebody," convinced I would somehow "be enough."

I used to be so angry at myself, at God, at my horse, for never winning.  I think it's the primary reason why I am not a competitive person today.  I literally had it beaten out of me.  I won't fight for people's attention, I won't fight in board games, I won't fight in simple games of volleyball.  Ten years of showing horses and never winning took any and all desire out of me to ever win again.  

But you know what dawned on me several years back?  I had this really profound epiphany while watching Cool Runnings.  I know, not the kind of movie you would think such a moment would come, but it did.  There's a scene when John Candy, the coach of the Jamaican bobsled team, is talking to the driver, Darice.  They are getting ready for the Olympic qualifier and Darice is in his hotel room studying all of the turns in the course.  They are talking about winning the gold and how bad Darice wants it.  Then John Candy very quietly says to Darice, looking him right in the eye, "If you're not enough without the gold medal, then you'll never be enough with it."

I don't pretend to understand the ways of God, but there is no doubt in my mind that He specifically withheld any success in the show ring for me to learn this very simple, but difficult lesson: If I'm not enough without the blue ribbon, I'll never be enough with it.  

For so long, my self-esteem, my confidence, my life hung on that one little thing: a blue ribbon.  And when I never got it - bitterness would probably be an understatement to describe what I felt.  I felt worthless.  I felt like everything had been in vain, years wasted.  I used to think about how my trainers, my parents, my family, must be so disappointed with me.  Always a failure.  I felt like I wasn't enough. 

But then God began pulling back the curtains and revealing to me just how valuable that lesson would become. 

Because I realized that it wasn't just the blue ribbon. 

If I am not enough without a boyfriend or a husband, I will never be enough with him.

If I am not enough without the dream career, I will never be enough with it. 

If I am not enough without the accolades and the pats on the back, then I will never be enough with them. 

Because the simple truth was that without Christ, I would never be enough.  No matter how hard I tried, no matter how bad I wanted something, apart from Him, everything was and is futile. 

It just took a lot of broken dreams to figure that one out.  But I wouldn't trade that lesson for anything.  I used to be so ashamed of my ribbons.  For awhile I had them all displayed in my bedroom, hung from every ledge possible.  Then I got really angry one day, just looking at them made me sick, so I took them all down, stuffed them in a box, and put them in the basement.  I don't think they had seen the light of day in over 8 years until yesterday morning when I went to find them.  

But now, I'm a little older and a little wiser.  I can look at those ribbons, and instead of seeing all that I wasn't and all that I never became, all I see is this:

I am enough.