Heidi Nequist, Guest Writer

TODAY’S TREASURE

On New Year's Day this year, my daughter Abby and I went to check out a horse auction with the intention of learning more about how we can get involved in the horse world. After hours at the auction, watching amazing horses sell for thousands of dollars and then watching others go for pennies on the dollar, we started to see the trends. At the very end of the night, a beautiful Appaloosa gelding came out, under saddle with a rider. That rider rode him like a crazy cowboy, and we could tell he was skinny, but he was managed well under saddle. I don't know what possessed me, but I bid on him. And I won.

When we walked to the pen, and he was no longer under saddle, I lost my breath. He was skin and bones. He was so weak, and so scared, and so hungry. His eyes were bloodshot and looked like they were popping out of his head. I looked at Abby again and we were both speechless. It took three REAL cowboys to get him in the trailer because he was SO afraid. A three-hour trip home and we reached our house around midnight. As soon as we opened the door to the trailer, we realized he was also VERY sick.

The world we live in is an excruciating place. So many of us suffer from wounds so deep they cannot be spoken. Abuse, sickness, death, hunger, the list is exhausting and never-ending. That horse's eyes told his story. “I am hurt, I am scared, I am broken, I am hungry, I am thirsty, I do not trust you, I do not want to love you, I do not want to be fixed. I am dead inside, please go away.” Does this touch that deep part of you that you don't want to see or feel? How can we feel joy ever again when we are so broken and destroyed?

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.

Psalm 51: 12

I read that verse this morning, many times, and I couldn't help but think of our new boy and how he represents so many of us who are hurting over so many things. David isn't just asking for God to help him. This is how I read that verse, "Please Lord, I want the joy that only you can offer, and I also need you to make me willing to accept it and to accept those moments when I don't feel joy."

Our new rescue reminds me of myself in so many ways. In the first 24 hours, he literally dared us to try to help him. Even if we gave him food, he grabbed it away and stared at us as if he were saying, "I will not thank you for helping me and I will never trust you."

Today when I went out to him, he whinnied when I walked in, and then he would not leave me alone while I tried to clean his stall. It only took a couple of days of constant reassurance for him to make a SMALL effort to connect with me. His eyes are not as crazy as they were before, and he isn't as jumpy. That dead look in his eyes isn't as prominent. He is allowing the nourishment to calm his grumbling belly, accepting the medication to help cure his pneumonia, and allowing my hands on his face to calm him.

LIFE-GIVING ENCOURAGEMENT

What a picture I have in my head at this moment of how broken I am, and how allowing my faith and my relationship with Jesus to heal me is exactly the parallel of our rescued horse and us. How patient God needs to be with me on a minute-by-minute basis as I struggle to trust his plans, not just for me and my husband, but for my children and grandchildren. I hold my hands so tight in a fist that doesn't represent surrender of any kind but shows my inability to trust God to do what is right for me. Maybe our boy, now named Apollo, is not just here for me to love and save, but to remind me of how much my God loves me and wants me to have joy.

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PRAYER

Father in Heaven, please help me to surrender, to release my grip, and to let You take the REINS. I pray that today I will see Your power in the small things, as well as in the big and powerful things. Amen.

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Sharon W. Betters is a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, pastor’s wife, and cofounder of MARKINC Ministries, where she is the Director of Resource Development. Sharon is the author of several books, including Treasures of Encouragement, Treasures in Darkness, and co-author with Susan Hunt of Aging with Grace. She is the co-host of the Help & Hope podcast and writes Daily Treasure, an online devotional.

Contact Sharon with comments or questions at d ailytreasure@markinc.org.

Trust and Surrender