True

True

Ever since I first wrote about watching a horse whisperer in The Beautiful Ache, something about that mysterious dynamic between human and horse has stayed with me. The simple beauty of call and response, of compelling and connection, keeps inviting me back again and again.

Not long ago I found the notes I took the second time I watched a cowboy who knew his stuff work with a skittish horse, and the four years that have passed since I wrote them fell away as I read.

• “The more you get the emotional part of your horse, the less technique you need.”
• “Confidence is knowledge challenged and found to be good.”
• “Courage is being scared and doing it anyway.”

I talked for a good while with this cowboy, listening to his unconventional training philosophy and well aware it wasn’t just about horses. I have no idea what the man believes or doesn’t believe about God, or if he could begin to see the parallels between the equine knowledge he was sharing and the ways of God with his children. But I could.

When God reached out to me, it was the purest, fullest, most uncomplicated overture I’ve ever known. Since then I’ve tested him over and over and found him to be unbelievably good. And the stuff he calls out of me isn’t demanded by force of power; instead it’s his love that compels me to give him the best I’ve got. Knowing he loves me makes me brave in ways I’ve never been brave before.

There was one stray word scribbled at the bottom of my last page of notes: true. The trainer’s assistant confided to me that the two of them chose a single word to describe each person who attended this clinic, and the word they’d both agreed on for me was true. It might have been the nicest compliment I’ve ever received. After all, the one who loves me is truer than true, and because I’m his, that’s what I long to be too.

I saw heaven opened, and a white horse was standing there. Its rider was named Faithful and True.

Revelation 19:11