Horse Biscuits

My oldest daughter recently turned 14. Her birthday falls several days before Christmas so every year I find myself in the midst of a feverish freak-out to do something special for her that showcases the day as a set-apart celebration of her entrance into the world amidst the also-very-important celebrations to honor the birth of Christ. It's hard sometimes.

Hmmm. What does she love more than anything? What would have her swinging around a tree on a vine like Rapunzel screaming "BEST! DAY! EVERRRR? What is going to make up for the fact that half of her Christmas presents are going to be late because of Covid and Amazon and...fine...my purchasing procrastination?

Meredith loves obsesses over horses. A horse birthday! Yes! I'm on this.

But, yeah. We live on Okinawa. And while this beautiful island boasts ramen that will change your life, Okinawa doesn't boast stables full of horses ready to be ridden. We saw a stable once. Once. With signs for lessons, even. "Beginners welcome!" Awesome. Until we learned of a potential connection between the owners and the Chinese mafia. So no. Although it would likely have made for a good story later because...No.

There had been this ONE other place that I had heard about, wayyyyy up north. They do horse therapy for children with special needs and I was SURE I had seen photos of an American Girl Scout troop up there at some point doing...well...horse things. Surely Mer will be able to ride. We're doing this! Because I am a champion birthday mom. Failure is not an option. Take no prisoners. And stuff. As I talked to the Director through our little Facebook Messenger box thing, though, it became clear that it wasn't the opportunity I had hoped it would be. She wouldn't be allowed to ride the therapy horses. "They're therapy horses." However, because this lovely woman on the other end of the chat had also been a horse-crazed teenager once, she was prepared to bless us.  She would allow Mer to come up and spend the day..well...cleaning stalls. So, with unreasonable feelings of optimism hitched firmly to feelings-of-failure desperation, we jumped in the car and made our way up the island for a little birthday surprise.

A mile from the farm, I let the feral, bizarro cat out of the bag. 

"Mer, guess what!? We're going to a horse farm for your birthday!"

"Really? I'm going to ride a horse today!? Oh my goodness, Mom! Thank you! You are the best! Wow!

"Um, well, no. Not really. You don't get to ride. But you do get to....muck stalls! Yay! Best! Day! Everrrrr!

"I GET to muck stalls? Wait. What?

She handled it well. She truly was just grateful to be around a horse. Any horse. For any purpose. My story might have been more entertaining if she had throat-punched me. She didn't. She was a champ. But let's be honest. Getting to shovel stinky, piled-high horse biscuits is not nearly in the same realm of blessing for a horse-crazed girl as actually riding the horse. Is it? 

Lately I've had a lot of teary exchanges with people I love who have been broadsided with horse-doodie disappointments. The gamut of emotional blows is almost too much to bear. Divorce. Failing health. Children with severe mental health problems. Deaths of loved ones. Stolen promotions. Lost relationships. Financial failure. Broken hearts. How can a person respond with any hope whatsoever that this is part of God's plan, much less even remotely akin to something "good"? Often as I cling to Paul's encouragement to rejoice in our sufferings, I feel like he's saying to me and to those around me, "Guess what!? You're not going to ride a horse but you get to shovel its poop! Get excited!" 

How? How on earth can a humany-human find any encouragement whatsoever when our hopes become stinging, painful disappointments that we are mustering every ounce of strength to navigate? What REALLY is there to rejoice over? It seems to me at times that it would require a supernatural capacity for heartache to genuinely say to ourselves,"Yay! I get to hurt today!" What kind of mindset even is this? It doesn't even make sense.

Unless it's in the supernatural context of the Gospel.

Do you ever think about the fact that when God implemented His great plan for Jesus to rescue us it subjected the Most High to becoming the "most low?" Do you consider the cost of God leaving His throne in Heavenly realms, the center of constant, justifiable worship, in His rightful place as Lord over all, to make tangible His eternal love for us? What kind of mindset even is this? Well...

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset with God, who, being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death-even death of a cross! (Philippians 2:8)

How about this?

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. (Isaiah 53:3)

God made Himself nothing. God humbled Himself. God became obedient to death. On a cross. With the weigh of the entirety of human sin on Himself. Your sin. My sin. The sins of the collective catalog of all sinful humans, ever. Don't overlook how absolutely painful it was for Him, and how absolutely unjust it was for Him; a holy, blemishless God, to take this darkness onto Himself. He did it for one reason...to rescue us so that we would not have to die. So that we would not have to bear the burden of that sin ourselves forever. Because He loves us. 

When I think about the extreme to which God went to ensure I would have the hope and promise of eternity, it encourages me to think about personal loss differently. He relinquished EVERYTHING for me. He made Himself NOTHING for me. Willingly. Although it is a stretch for me to say I daily rejoice in my sufferings, I am starting to get glimpses of how, through relinquishment to the reality of hardship, there is a sacred, intimate connection with Jesus; a purposeful overlapping of me in my humanity and Him in His Messiah-ness. When I am heartbroken, I better understand how costly I was to Him. When I am betrayed, I better sense His betrayal. When I am lonely, I better comprehend His loneliness. When injustice is done to me, I more deeply grasp the injustice done to Him, on my behalf. The painful vignettes of Jesus' life and death are not just distant tales that should encourage me to "take heart" when the going gets tough. They are part of my story, the very fabric of my life, my own biography, because He endured all of those things for me. It stands to reason that at some point in this love relationship with Jesus I would be so totally blown away by His sacrifice that I could appeal with a forthright heart, "Let me suffer, too, just so I can be closer to you, Lord."

To know God, and to know Him intimately, should be our GREATEST, most LOUD, most PASSIONATE calling in life. Is it yours? How do you respond when you find yourself shoveling rather than galloping? We cannot know God apart from disappointment. To despise hardship and pain is to despise knowing a very important part of who He is. Do we want all of Him? Yes. Then we have to be intimately familiar with suffering, friends. That genuine desperation to know Him deeply is what, with supernatural care and protection, shepherds us to the sweetest, most unexpected place of peace where we can legitimately proclaim  that "the present suffering is not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18). Its in that place, whether a horse farm or hospital bed or lawyers office or bathroom floor, where we will be confronted, surprisingly, with our own voices rising above the noise to confidently express gratitude in a quiet "Thank you, God, that instead of riding I get to muck stalls today."