I just hit the nine week mark in my healing journey. It is time for me to get back up on the horse! 

While this may be an “idiom,”  a frequently quoted saying that is understood to mean, “you fall down and you get back up again,” I experienced it as a young girl in a very literal sense!

I was raised in the city, but I lived in an area that was zoned for horses. We had an acre and a quarter of property with two big backyards. The second backyard held two horse corrals and a small barn that held grain and tack supplies. The Hay bales were piled outside the back of the barn and when they were first delivered we had a blast building hay forts! However, that’s a story for another time.

My aunt, uncle and cousins lived down the street and around the corner and they had an even bigger backyard. While my dad was building our horse corral, we boarded our horses at their house. This is where my story takes place.

I have three sisters, I am the oldest of four girls. Our dad was an athlete and an outdoorsman. He had many loves in his life, but one of his greatest was horses! He taught us all to ride and how to take care of them. One afternoon our washing machine had broken down and my mom told me that I needed to go to the laundromat with her. We dropped my sisters Lori and Lynnie off with my cousins around the corner and we took off for the laundromat. My mom and I had not been at the laundromat long when my cousins car came roaring up to the front with a sudden halt! Lynnie jumped out of the car crying hysterically. She was three years younger and had been bucked off the back of the horse with a very sore and bruised tailbone. Lori stepped out the car slowly with a washcloth draped over the top of her arm and she was clearly in shock!

Both of my sisters were riding bareback on one of the horses when one of my cousins who wanted to ride and was mad because she wasn’t, threw rocks at the horse. The horse was spooked and started bucking, Lynnie slid off the back and hit the ground hard and Lori hung on for a while and was then thrown into the barbed wire fence. From the top of her under arm, nearly halfway down to her elbow the barbed wire had ripped it clean open! Many stitches were needed and the scars can still be found. When my dad came home from work he talked with all of us. He said, 

“When your arm is healed, we will all go over and ‘get back up on that horse!’ My dad knew that if we did not face our fear and get back up on that horse, time would go by, the fear would grow stronger, and we would never get back on the horse! 

I cannot even imagine how hard that had to be for Lynnie and Lori, who had experienced the trauma of being bucked off and hurt, but I am so thankful that my dad taught us the valuable lesson of, ‘GETTING BACK UP ON THE HORSE!’

As I take steps back into “normalcy,“ I find myself treading lightly!

Yes, I am in my ninth week post surgery, and the gas bubble is finally gone (PRAISE GOD) but my vision is still not 100%, the blurriness is ever present and my confidence level is less than sterling!

I know I need to get back up on the horse again, but I am less than confident about being back in the saddle.

Have you ever been in a bad situation and after it’s over you are still in a little bit of shock?

Maybe you have gone through a fierce rain storm and it finally ends and you are cautious about putting your patio furniture back out for fear it could hit again.

Or maybe you’ve been camping and the winds flare up and the thunder strikes and the rain begins to pour all over your camping equipment. You pull everything in and huddle up and finally it’s over! But you hesitate to step back outside not sure if it’s going to start up again.

Or maybe like me, you have been caught in a fire storm where you had to throw everything you could quickly get your hands on into your car and flee!

I still sleep with certain items under my bed that I feel like I could not live without, so I could quickly grab them in case of another emergency.

I still have no answers as to why my retina detached from my right eye. I also have no guarantees that it won’t happen again! 

Due to the trauma of no reason and no warning for my detached retina, I am timid to jump back into some of my normal routines. I have walked frequently, and have even resumed some of my hikes with my husband. But starting up my normal exercise routine where jumping and lifting and quick movements are involved… I am Trepid!

I know I need to, “GET BACK UP ON THE HORSE,” but I also know that it is going to take more than I have in my own strength to do it!

God promises that His grace is sufficient for me!

TRUTH BOMB

WHEN IT’S TIME TO GET BACK UP ON YOUR HORSE, GOD’S GRACE IS SUFFICIENT TO GET US BACK IN THE SADDLE!

Whatever “horse” obstacle you are facing that is keeping you from being back in the saddle again, know that God‘s grace is sufficient for you!

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

II Corinthians 12:9

God‘s grace is sufficient for us to get back up on the horse again and into the saddle because in our weakness His power is made perfect!

We may be weak, but He is strong! And when we give our weakness to Him, His power perfects our weakness and we are able to get back up on the horse and back in the saddle again!

Speak Truth Love