He Met Me in a Stable

A couple of weeks ago, I slipped into my old, worn out Carhartt, stained with who knows what, and probably hasn't seen the inside of a washer since who knows when.  I piled on layers of leggings, jeans and ski pants that were doubling as overalls, keeping the cold night air at bay.  I jammed on my winter hat and set foot inside a stable, something I hadn't done in what felt like an eternity.  

If you've known me for any length of time, then you'll be well-acquainted with my longstanding love affair with all things equine.  For those that don't know me, though, you can get the crash course on my horse saga here, here, here, here and here.  Horses (animals in general, really) were my safe haven as a child and as a teenager, my place to run and hide, to retreat from the world and from people.  I found great comfort in their presence, in the routine of caring for them, tending to their needs, working with my hands.  Somewhere in the depths of an old journal is an entry I wrote about my dog Bubbles (yes, I named my half-Rottweiler Bubbles), and how I considered her my best friend.  I still miss that dog to this day and she's been gone for over a decade now.  There was power in the companionship of creatures that viewed life from a fairly uncomplicated lens - you feed me, brush me, pet me, and I will love you forever and shower you with kisses in return.  It's a simple exchange.  

     

I've unexpectedly longed for that companionship again in recent days.  In the craziness and turmoil of this anxiety that has wrecked my world, I found myself wishing for a dog by my side or to bury my face in the mane of a horse. I have found myself wanting to return to the places and interests I once found solace in, place and interests that brought a measure of peace and quiet, predictability and routine.  

Having been out of the horse world for so long now, the outlets I once had no longer exist.  My childhood trainers have since sold their farm and all their horses, so I can't go back there.  My own pony died several years ago, so I can't wander out to my parents' backyard to tinker around.  I haven't had a dog in ages, so I can't even reach out for a wagging tail either.  The closest thing I've had for a pet these days is the Bob Ross Chia Pet my brother and sister-in-law got me for my birthday.    

But thank God.  He knows just what we need precisely when we need it.  The mother of a friend of mine from church has a stable and a barn full of ponies.  Janet and I connected earlier this year when she asked me to judge her pony club show in the spring.  She kept saying I could come out to the barn any time I wanted, just let her know.  I never took her up on the offer until two weeks ago.  I was craving the safe haven of a stables again, so I texted her, asking if I could finally take her up on her offer to visit the stables and her ponies.  Of course, she said.  

That's when I found myself slipping into my Carhartt coat and setting foot inside a stable.  Instant memories.  The smells brought back a flood of images to my mind, the dim lights reminding me of my own grandfather's barn.  Janet showed me where all of the brushes were and where I could cross-tie the little pony I was going to groom, Coco.  She said she had some stuff to get done up to the house, and would leave me alone to the task at hand - brushing a very wet, very shaggy and very woolly Shetland pony.  Just before she slipped out, she called over her shoulder, something that brought me to tears once she disappeared:

"God will meet you here tonight.  I already made a reservation."

She said nothing more as she slipped into the dark of the night, while I was left holding a grooming brush, listening to the quiet munching of the horses eating their hay.

God will meet you here tonight.  

I'm grateful that God meets us in our hours of deepest need, in the places that are neither churches nor temples, but rather the places that are often common, familiar, dusty and smelly.  The places that aren't always tidy, aren't always fit for the presence of a King.  Places like stables and barns and stalls.

He did that once before, you know.

He met all of humanity in a manger, among the straw and the hay, the dust and the dirt, among the very animals he created.  He met us in the common, familiar, dusty and smelly nook of a place, a town called Bethlehem, in the hour of humanity's deepest need.  

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”  (Luke 2:4-12)

This will be a sign for you - a baby lying in a manger. 

Among the animals.

He met me in a stable as a child - then as a teenager - and now as an adult.

But really he met me over 2,000 years ago when he came as a baby wrapped in cloths, lying in a manger.

Our God is a God who meets us in the places of our lives that are not always tidy, not always fit for a King.  In our less-than-Pinterest-worthy homes, at the bedside of loved ones fighting to live another day, behind prison bars where men and women crumble under the weight of their guilt and shame, in the darkened alleys of the city streets where women sell their bodies, in our offices with desks piled high with paperwork and stress, in our yards where the weeds and the worms grow, in the orphanages filled with children who have no one claiming them.  He meets us in all of those places and countless others.  

There's not a place on Planet Earth where Jesus cannot or will not meet his children.  The psalmist declares in Psalm 139:7-10: "Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast."

There's nowhere I can go where I can flee his presence.  There's nowhere I can go where his hand will not guide, where it will not hold me fast.

Including a stable.  

Because he knows what it's like to listen to the quiet munching of horses eating their hay, and he knows what it's like to meet with his Father.

God will meet you here tonight, on this night, and he will do so every moment of every day for now and all eternity.  Just like he did all those years ago.

I'm so very grateful the God of the universe met me in a stable - both now and over 2,000 years ago on a starry, starry night.

The One Thing I Swore I Would Never Leave

People often ask me if I miss horses and horseback riding.  It’s a fairly straightforward answer most days: no.

But here lately?

Here lately I’ve been getting a little more sentimental about the question.  A friend asked me just a couple of weeks ago, after watching a documentary called Unbranded (I highly recommend seeing it), which was about these four guys who broke and trained 16 wild mustangs and rode them from the Mexico border all the way up to Canada.  Stunning cinematography and a testament to the strength and ruggedness of these creatures.  After we got done watching the movie, I got in my car to drive home, thinking about her question, and I burst into tears. What on earth.  Tears that were totally unexpected and somewhat unexplainable, even in my own mind.  I’m still not sure I completely understand why the dam broke in light of her question.

I came out of the womb loving horses.  I was that little girl who actually got a pony as a child.  My grandfather had a herd of ornery little Shetland ponies that occasionally liked to escape from the pasture, and I was completely in love with them.  I have no conscious memory of this, but the family legend goes that one day I was over to my grandparents’ farm. My mom and dad were both working, my mom down to the county fair for the day, working in the fair board office.  My brothers and I were down to my grandparents’, under their watchful eye, although “watchful” may be relative if you ask my mother.

My mom called up to the house, wanting to check on us kids.  I was maybe three or four at the time? My grandfather answered and when my mom asked how I was doing, he calmly informed her that I was doing just fine, and that I was currently outside riding one of the ponies. No clue how I got up there.  I didn’t seem bothered, the pony didn’t seem bothered, and my grandpa didn’t seem bothered.  I don’t know that we could say the same for mother.  Apparently the thought of her toddler of a daughter traipsing around on the back of pony unsupervised was not her idea of “just fine”.

But that was just the start of the love affair that would turn into nearly a two-decade relationship.  I would eventually start taking lessons and training with a professional when I was maybe nine years old, started showing a couple of years after that, and bought my first horse a couple of years after that.

I ate, slept and breathed horses.  My walls were plastered with horse posters from Horse Illustrated. My bookshelves were overflowing with Breyer horses and horse books.  The All-American Quarter Horse Congress was one of my favorite places to go every year for my birthday.  I cut up the daily newspaper in the weeks leading up to the Triple Crown races, saving articles and features on various thoroughbreds and trainers, wondering if this was finally going to be the next big Crown winner.  I spent a couple of times a week at the local stables where I rode, inhaling deep breaths every time I walked in, loving the smell of hay, sawdust, leather and Murphy’s Oil.

It’s the one thing I swore I would never leave, the one thing I vowed I would never walk away from or abandon.

I wrote in my journal in January 2003, my senior year of high school, “I wouldn’t give horses up for anything.”

In a mere nine months, I did exactly what I swore I would never do: I quit riding without so much as a second glance or a second-guess.

It’s a long story of what happened in those nine months leading up to that decision, so I’ll spare you all of the details.  Mind you, by this time, I’m off to college at William Woods University, a university known for its equestrian program, the first of its kind in the nation.  That program was the whole reason why I had moved 8 hours and 500-plus miles away from my home and family.  The short version primarily boiled down to the fact that I had a lot of conversations with Jesus and that I literally woke up one day and didn’t care if I ever got on the back of a horse again.  And for all intents and purposes, I didn’t. I lost all desire, all interest, and all passion for the thing I had loved most in my life.  God had made it clear: walk away from horses.

I would write in my journal in October of that year, hardly eight weeks into the first semester, writing about how I didn’t want to pursue riding anymore, “And the crazy thing? I’m not the slightest bit upset about it.  I’ll never stop loving them.  They were my first love.  At one point I couldn’t imagine my life without them.  But now I can.”

And that’s how I knew – when I began imagining my life without horses, something that had never ever occurred to me before, like a light getting switched on for the first time, I knew it was time to put the saddle away and pack up my riding clothes.  I dropped both of my riding classes shortly after that journal entry in October, not even bothering to finish the semester.  I still went back to the stables that following summer and worked for my trainer, but I think it was because I was still trying to figure out what else to do.  At that point, I had spent practically ten years riding horses, in the saddle at least a thousand different times on who knows how many different horses.

I can count on one hand now the number of times I’ve been on the back of a horse since that last summer.

Walking away from horses was one of the smartest decisions I have ever made in my life.  And if I had to do it all over again, I would do the exact same thing.  God had given me the possibility of new and different dreams, ones that were better than anything I could have imagined, including horses.

So, do I miss them? Yeah, on occasion, if I’m honest.  I miss the feel of their neck underneath my hands, feeling their mane run through my fingers.  I miss the feel of the brush in my hands, their muscles rippling beneath the movements.  I miss the satisfaction that came from manual labor and long hard days.  I miss the smell of molasses grain and saddle soap.  I miss the quiet mornings spent grooming the horses and getting them ready for their workouts.  I miss the feel of the saddle underneath me.  I miss the routines.  I miss feeding them mints after a hard workout.  I miss the solitude and the stillness of the barn, the occasional munching of hay drifting down the aisle.

Yeah, there’s a lot that I miss.

But not enough to pick that dream up again.

And I’m okay with that.  Until God upends that dream and turns it around like he did once before, I’ll be content to enjoy my once-every-couple-of-years horseback ride on the beaches of New Zealand or through the Grand Tetons.

That’s enough for me.  For now.

Because you know what they say - never say never.

Farewell to the Home of a Thousand Memories

"People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all... has happened. My store is closing this week. I own a store, did I ever tell you that? It's a lovely store, and in a week it will be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap. Soon, it'll just be a memory. In fact, someone, some foolish person, will probably think it's a tribute to this city, the way it keeps changing on you, the way you can never count on it, or something. I know because that's the sort of thing I'm always saying. But the truth is... I'm heartbroken. I feel as if a part of me has died, and my mother has died all over again, and no one can ever make it right." ~ You've Got Mail

Leave it to You've Got Mail to give me the words I need at the moment when I most need them.  It's not the first time this has happened.

The place where I found a second home, a second family, and learned that Jesus was enough is about to change hands.  Wheeler Stables, the place where I cleaned out more stalls than I care to count and took a few tumbles off the backs of a few lesson horses.  The place where I gathered a few dreams and watched a few fall apart.  The place where I fought a few fears and maybe finally found some comfort in my own skin.  The place where I met people who understood my obsession with horses and did weird things like feed their horses mints and scratch their tongues.  The place where I learned what it looked like to bust my tail to accomplish something, to work hard for what I wanted.  The place where I cried a few tears in frustration, but felt the satisfaction and sweetness of having a twelve hundred pound beast respond just the way I wanted them to.

It will all soon belong to someone else.

I feel a lot like Kathleen Kelly in You've Got Mail. The stables is in the process of being sold and in a short time it's going to be something really depressing like a Quarter Horse farm. (My apologies to any QH lovers reading this.  I'm sure they are lovely creatures, but I will forever be partial to the American Saddlebred and that's all I'll be able to picture in the stalls of this barn.)  People say change is a good thing, but what they are really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all...has happened.  And soon this farm will be just a memory.  And maybe I am a bit heartbroken.

I know, it's just a building.  A place built by human hands.  Wood, brick, aluminum.  Hay, dirt, sawdust.  Cobwebs, horseflies, and maybe one too many gnats.  

But this is where so much of my life happened.

And I'm sad.  I'm sad to see it soon belong to someone else, to not be able to pull in its driveway whenever I want.  The farm was actually officially put on the market over a decade ago.  It rocked my world even then to find out my trainers were selling, it just seemed deeply personal, like I was about to lose a part of my very own identity.  But years passed and no one came along to buy it.  It was just one of those things that I subconsciously thought would always be there, just as I always remembered it, always belonging to Wheelers.

While a small part of me grieves, I will forever be grateful for that little corner of the world, those 84 acres where I learned what it finally meant to like who I was.  It was in your aisleways and stalls that I felt at home, at ease.  It was on your board fences that I figured out what it looked like to let go of some dreams, and come up wanting better dreams, different dreams.  It was on your grassy fields that I learned to hang on for dear life, literally and figuratively.  It was in your tack room that I came to love the smell of leather and Murphy's Oil.  It was in your arena that I learned to dust myself off and get back on again.  And it was through two people, Dave and Eileen Wheeler, that I was forever changed.  Apart from my own family, no two other people have had the greatest impact on those years of my life like you two did.  You encouraged me, spoiled me, taught me, and loved me like no one else did at that time.  Your farm was my outlet and my safe haven from the chaos of my life.  You were my retreat when I was so desperate to hide away.

My story, my past doesn't make sense without this place.  It's incomplete.  Someone once said, "All the art of living is a fine mingling of letting go and holding on."  This is the fine mingling of letting go of a physical place. And holding onto a thousand memories of a place I will forever love.    
     

Take My Advice...

I have numerous alternative titles to this post:

- You May Have Won the Battle, But You're Going to Lose the War
- Why I Hate Running
- Curse Words and Other Ungodly Thoughts
- Top Ten Reasons to Never Own a Pony
- Lessons Learned the Hard Way
- Where's a Lasso When You Need One?

I think you can see where this is going. 

But first let me say - to all of you who have children, will have children, know children, or have grandchildren:

Never EVER get them a pony. I don't care how much they whine, complain, beg, plead, manipulate, blackmail you, or give you sad puppy eyes.  Don't give in. 

Case in point:

I have a pony.  A rather woolly Shetland Pony named Rosebud, Bud for short.  I got her when I was probably 9 or 10 years old.  I didn't know any better at that point that I would still be paying the price for this cantankerous little beast nearly 16 years later.  I'm fairly confident she'll live to be 40 just for spite.  She's not a mean-spirited little pony, she just has her moments.

She had one last night. 

I brought her in from the pasture, put her in her stall, gave her grain, grabbed her water bucket and walked off.  I didn't think much of it, I grab her water as usual.  By the time I come back to her stall, I see the door swinging open and she's already halfway down the field.  This is when I start swearing, which I am not prone to doing.  I grab a handful of grain and the lead rope and take off into the field after her, begging and pleading with her in my head to not make it through the few openings in the field that we have, which lead directly to the road and basically open fields with no fences.  Thankfully, she didn't.  She just decided to high-tail it to the back forty of the farm.  I was ready to murder her. 

I get close to her on a couple of occasions, but then she would spook and take off again.  After we had made it to the farthest corners of the field, I manage to work her back to the barn, tasting victory because if I can just get her to the barn she'll walk into the stall. 

No such luck.

She turns around and bolts off again.  At this point, I'm yelling at my friend, Andrea, who, bless her heart, was visiting from Missouri for the weekend and had no idea what she was in for.  She goes and gets my dad, tells him to get his Gator out. 

By this point, we're back in the back of the field again and I'm still swearing at her.  (We're talking roughly 8 acres that I have now sprinted across to get this little beast.)  I know, not one of my finer moments.  So, here comes my dad on the Gator and I'm waving at him to back off as I was within reach of her again and I didn't want her to spook.  Somehow or another, I reach for her, miss the halter, but get a chunk of mane and I am hanging on for dear life while she is dragging me along.  I can't keep up and she bolts to the side and I go flying in the other direction, taking a tumble in the freshly plowed fields.  Hardly a graceful exit.  Not only am I swearing by now, I really just want to burst into tears.

We eventually corner her again and I thought, "Blast you, you little snot.  I'll be hanged if I'm going to let you go again."  Now I'm just angry and ready to spit nails.  Two can play this game of stubbornness and I guarantee I'm not going to be the one to lose this time around.  I've got a handful of grass and grain still.  I creep up to her, she nibbles a bit, I lunge for her halter, and miss yet again.  I have no idea how I did it, but I again managed to get fistfuls of mane.  And let me tell you, I was not letting go this time.  I'm trying everything I can to get her to stop to no avail.  I'm digging my heels into the ground, I'm running alongside her, practically laying across her back, half-tempted to just hop her on back.  By now she's flat out galloping and I'm thinking I'm about to get a lesson in vaulting.  Somehow or another, I reach around to the right side of her head and grab her halter and yank her head around.  She finally grinds to a halt, but considering I dropped the lead rope about 200 feet back, it took everything I had just to get her to stand there and not start dragging me all over again. 

My dad brings over the lead rope, clips it on her and then holds onto her for a minute.  I'm panting so hard and my legs are so weak I can barely stand up.  I felt like I had just finished running the 200 yard dash, having flashbacks when my legs would just feel like jell-o, unsure of how to take another step.  I was reminded of why I hate running in those moments of pause.  I'm still swearing.

We walk her over to the Gator, I get in to drive, Dad gets in the passenger seat while he's holding on to her lead and we make the long and slow trek back to the barn.  She walks quietly as can be into her stall, while I'm still clutching my sides, wondering if my heart rate is ever going to return to normal.  By the time I get inside, I can't decide whether to pass out or throw up from the exertion. 

I find the story extremely funny now.  I didn't last night.  I was ready to turn that pony into glue.  But now I've managed to laugh so hard about the entire thing - because it really is quite funny.  When was the last time you heard somebody talk about having to chase down their runaway pony?

If only I had it all on video.  I guarantee it would have gone viral.  Andrea didn't know she was getting free tickets to the rodeo for the weekend.

So, remember:

Don't ever buy a pony.    

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.