Running with the horses

I was at a conference this August with this title as the theme. The whole conference was pointing us to that moment of release (from the stall to run the race, from the stable to run free in the paddock). I took notes, I listened carefully, and I felt like this isn't the time yet for me. I'm don't feel ready to run free yet.

I was wrong.

When horses get injured they are either shot (because the injury is too severe to repair) or they are rehabilitated and healed. God has us on a healing mission. How do I know? I'm still here! I woke up this morning.

Today my daughter and I visited a friend whose husband died a year ago. She was recently given the opportunity to care for an older horse and a very young yearling colt. She wanted us to see them, and since my daughter loves horses, I was sure she would enjoy it. We fed them carrots, brushed the young horse and even mucked out his stall. My daughter loved it, and so did I.

As we drove away, my friend told me how therapeutic looking after these horses has been for her. She said that it has given her purpose, something to do every day and something to look forward to. This week, for the first time, she is going to to ride the older horse. It will be another 2 years before she will ride the colt, but she is working with him to socialize him, teach him manners and develop a relationship with him.

Looking at my friend, I can see the difference. She doesn't have the same pain in her eyes that she had the last time I saw her. She may have reached the end of the first year of bereavement, but she has also found something. It isn't ever going to replace what (and who) she lost. In fact, one of her dogs recently had to be put down because of a serious illness, so that was another loss at a time when she felt unprepared for it.

I realized too, as I watched the tender expression on my daughter's face, that this is therapeutic for her as well. And, of course, it parallels all that I have been trying to do with her and her sister since they came home three years ago.

Before we left, my friend gave my daughter a beautiful photo of a white horse. It is shyly peeping around a door, with the light half on its face, half in shadow. It looked like the face of a horse from the banners at the women's conference in August. I took a photo of one of them - called "Faithful and True" - and the colouring of the horse is almost identical.

God spoke to me as I looked at this picture. Revelation 3:22 Behold I stand at the door and knock and if anyone opens the door, I will come in and eat with him...

The door of the stable is open, and there is the horse called Faithful and True. He is here. He is with us. He is present. It is time to open the door. It is time to be let loose in the paddock.

God does not expect us to run when we are weary or lame. He doesn't want us stuck in the stable all the time either. There is fresh air, clean grass, open fields and lots of sun. There is also mud, rain and wind, but then we can come back into the shelter of the stable and be at rest. Our needs will be met there.

Perhaps God expects me to be able to run before I feel ready. Perhaps I am "comfortable" in the place of grief and trauma. That has been my prayer lately: that God will show me when it is time to get up and move. I know that I cannot sit in sadness and loss forever.

In a different way, the same metaphor applies to my daughter. She has been moved from paddock to paddook. She has seen change and loss over and over. At times she wants to run free and be at ease, but then she has to look back and check that she is safe, that everything is in place to allow her the freedom to do that. Not always does she feel at ease to run and be free.

Then she is going back to school, and that represents a kind of restriction to her, a reminder of all she CAN'T do. Already I feel the sense of anxiety and disappointment rising in her. She feels like she fails, she feels like she can't. But she has to. And that is hard.

He is Faithful and True and His horse is called Faithful and True. Our Saviour comes to us on a horse of triumph, and I want to run toward Him with all the wind in my hair and all the freedom to be who He has made me to be.