God Gave Me A Horse (but mom made me give him back)

As a small child, Mom and I were together all the time.  She was a good friend to me and tried to nurture me in ways of faith and the world. Like any good mother, she worked on my self esteem. Which is where the "You can be, or do, anything you want in life son. If you pray hard, have faith, and work hard,  everything  is possible" speech originated.

So it began, every night before bed, every day while out playing when watching TV westerns. I asked God to give me a horse. I wasn't fussy about what kind. Just any old horse would do. Mom would reassure me from time to time. I should just keep asking God, and if I believed hard enough, he would answer my prayer. Little did she know just how much weight a five year old must carry in heaven. The next part of this story is hard to believe I admit. But it is the gospel, you can ask Dad. He still remembers it.

I was in the yard with Mom doing yard work. Well ok, actually, I was playing, but Mom was raking leaves. I heard a commotion up the dirt road in front of the house. Mom heard it also and we both turned to look, amazed at what we saw! A FULLY SADDLED HORSE, in a gallop, snorting and panting up a storm! He pulled up just at the house, and walked into MY yard and began to eat grass. I was uncontrollable. It is probably the closest I had ever been to becoming a Pentecostal, I was jumping up and down shouting''

"HALLELUJAH! PRAISE THE LORD! "LOOK MOM, GOD SENT ME MY HORSE!"

"Mom you were right!" I screamed. Yes, she was right all along. Just good old prayer, that is all you need. There is no doubt, I was the most euphoric little five year old in the entire world. I now had, A HORSE, a REAL LIVE HORSE! Delivered right to my house! Hey, we're talking miracles here people! A genuine burning bush moment! My mother though, was not euphoric, in fact, she was down right horrified! I can still picture her panic filled face, looking around for any, (and I do mean any), logical explanation of why this horse was here.

At first, unsure how to handle the situation she said, "There has to be a mistake." A mistake??? Well, It was certainly no mistake! God didn't make those! Heck, even I knew that! What was so hard to understand here? It seemed simple to me. I had followed the rules and God himself had sent me a horse! Not complicated at all! Not only did God give me my horse, he even threw in a saddle to boot! Was God great or what?

"Can I ride him now?" I begged. "Not just yet" she replied as she tied the horse's reins to a small tree. Looking back,  after raising five kids of my own, I can now imagine what was going through her mind. How do I tell this child, that this could not possibly be his horse?  And do it without crushing his hope and dashing his faith in all things holy and maternal? She couldn't, she had nothing, but I, had me a horse!

Her salvation arrived a few minutes later however, in the form of an angry looking man who came driving up to our house in pickup truck. Mom met him, and they talked and motioned towards my new horse, and Mom was now laughing. The man's expression changed from anger to one of perplexity and amusement. As Paul Harvey says, "Now this, is the rest of the story"

Seems the man owned a riding stable. The horse had thrown his rider, ran off and ended up stopping at our house. They attempted to explain all of this to me. No dice. I wasn't having any of it! At first my position was as solid as the rock I was standing on. God gave me the horse, who did they think they were? You don't just undo what God does. Besides, even if the man was telling the truth, I reasoned that what you've got here is a clear case of "finders keepers" with the Almighty on my side. The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away.

But my mother was persuasive. "I should be thankful" she said. "God did answered my prayer" she said,and he answered it in the only way possible. She explained she did not have the money to take care of the horse ( I immediately  suggested she could pray for it). She went on..we did not have any place to keep a horse; We did not know how to care for a horse etc. Now the man was sympathetic to my plight, and suggested that I would still "sort of" own the horse. He would keep it at his stable, but I could visit it anytime that I wanted to.

Sounded like a trick to me. Reason after reason came forth. Slowly, I began to succumb to her logic and in the nature of full disclosure, I must admit that I was more than just a little afraid of him. The thing was huge!  Mom and the man finally wore me down to the point where I relented. Later we would visit the Horse but it just wasn't the same thing at all. After a couple of visits, I soon lost interest.

My mother always believed the Horse incident was truly an answered prayer. Later in life she would say "God probably did it just to shut you up" she said. "Honestly Terry, you really could just go on and on about things." I understand this so much better now, especially since the birth of my youngest son Joe, he too has this same gift.

But Isn't that just the way God works sometimes? There were lessons upon lessons for all of us that were involved in the Horse saga. You know, Jesus says to keep on asking, keep on knocking. To my knowledge, he has always answered my prayers and most of the time in ways that were mysterious and impossible to predict. He answered them all except one.

My Mom still died from cancer. I guess I was just over ruled on that one, but then, I would have kept her around forever. So maybe I was asking amiss.  Like Aunt Mary's letter recently published, I have to accept that he knows best and God is still Great. So better be careful what you tell your children to Pray for, you've heard the warnings, "they might just might get it.!"  
Terry