You get the saddle and show me you're really serious…and I’ll get you the horse.” —Daddy
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in life is that you’re never too old to keep dreaming or believing that you can accomplish those dreams. With a lot of prayer and patience…you can accomplish anything you put your mind to. (Even if sometimes you’re leaning heavy on the prayer because there is no Wi-Fi & you are not sure how to even find the right road to the dream.)
When a prayer I whispered only to God started to come true and I began riding an absolute dream of a reining horse…I felt a feeling within my heart that I’d felt before. It was the same feeling I felt when I was little and began riding for the first time. The excitement, the newness, the yearning for the next ride before I’d even slung my leg back over the horse to dismount from this one. I guess that’s how drug addicts feel too…thankfully my addiction is maybe a little safer. (?!)
“I know what’s coming,” my husband would say after I’d shared every.last.detail of every.single.ride with him.
I would smile. I knew too.
“One day…” I would say.
I knew that if I’d come this far with just a whisper of a prayer, God would point me where I needed to go, if this was indeed where I was supposed to be heading. I prayed that He would show me clear signs too…because, you know, sometimes I’m a little stubborn.
In the meantime, I started looking for a used reining saddle. A girl can never have too many saddles, right?
I would spend evenings sorting through ads on Facebook Marketplace, sending anything that looked decent to my trusted team of enablers. In between saddle hunting, sometimes I would drift over to the reining horses…and drool.
But none of them compared to Diesel.
Last spring, I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to ride and learn on Diesel, the dream of all dream horses. He is the horse everyone falls in love with and has been the ultimate teacher for me, being a newbie-baby-reiner. I knew his owners, my trusted reining-enablers, would never sell him & that was okay…that meant I could always love him at their farm, even if/when I had my own reining horse…one day.
I talked to a few people with horses for sale, but nothing ever felt right. It just wasn’t…Diesel.
When I found the perfect-for-me used saddle, I was excited to take it to the barn & try it on Diesel. Naturally, he had to like it too. After we had the best ride ever (because they all are), I was chatting with one of my trusty enablers when she said…
“We have something we wanted to talk to you about…”
My heart sank.
They’re sick of me. I’ve ruined Diesel by smuggling him extra treats and reminding him how perfect he is. They saw me letting him lick my face and think I’m a bad influence and a weirdo…shoot.
“We decided that…if you are really looking for a reining horse…we would sell you Diesel.”
I don’t remember what I said. But I’ll never forget how I felt.
It was the feeling I felt on Christmas morning 1991 when I saw a horse in our front yard. I had bought my first saddle that September & at Christmas, as promised, my parents made sure I got a horse.
I felt like that 7-year-old little girl all over again…but this time, I understood far more what it meant to share your heart horse with someone.
On the drive home, I called my mom and squealed and cried.
She squealed and cried.
“Oh baby…I’m so happy!! And your new saddle…it fit him? This was your first ride in it?!”
The thousands of thoughts swirling around in my brain came to a halt…
You get the saddle and show me you're really serious…and I’ll get you the horse.
“It fits perfectly,” I said.
As I write this, I’m looking out my window at dreams I had that have come true.
God heard each of my prayers.
Reining is a dream that truly…God was the only one I ever even talked about it with. (Although there were signs…I attended every reining show I could physically get to and wandered the barn aisles with little hearts in my eyes.)
Not only did God hear my prayers, but He encouraged others to help me with my dream.
And He still is.
To all of my reining-enablers, on Earth and in heaven, thank you.
Sometimes all you need to do is buy the saddle…and trust in God.