I must make a confession: for over a week now I’ve been sulking. I took my talented dressage horse to his first show of the year, and the eleven year old acted up so badly that our scores were the worst we’ve got since he was a green four year old!
My whole world was turned upside down: everything I’d worked for with this horse was for nothing....
Reality Check
Then I attended a second funeral in as many weeks. Like the first, it was for a loving husband who suddenly died in his early fifties. Consoling the petite widow was her 22 year old son, a marine in uniform who is serving in Afghanistan. At such a young age, he forced himself to hide his own grief to support her and I felt deeply for him.
During the earlier funeral I was in awe of the widow's continuing faith in God despite the tragedies He's sent her. Her husband had now died, and six years earlier her teenage son was killed in an off-campus house fire while at college.
One lady lost both her menfolk in a few short years. The other had just lost her husband and her son was about to return to active duty in Afghanistan. Would he return alive or in a body bag?
Giving Thanks
I left that second funeral in a very different frame of mind from when I arrived, and gave thanks to God for my husband and my son. I asked God to keep them both safe, if it was His will.
Last night my son came home from his first year of college for the summer and my husband returned home from work. Together with my son’s girlfriend, we went out to dinner and celebrated the reunion of the family.
Suddenly a bad horse show doesn’t seem important any more.
My whole world was turned upside down: everything I’d worked for with this horse was for nothing....
Reality Check
Then I attended a second funeral in as many weeks. Like the first, it was for a loving husband who suddenly died in his early fifties. Consoling the petite widow was her 22 year old son, a marine in uniform who is serving in Afghanistan. At such a young age, he forced himself to hide his own grief to support her and I felt deeply for him.
During the earlier funeral I was in awe of the widow's continuing faith in God despite the tragedies He's sent her. Her husband had now died, and six years earlier her teenage son was killed in an off-campus house fire while at college.
One lady lost both her menfolk in a few short years. The other had just lost her husband and her son was about to return to active duty in Afghanistan. Would he return alive or in a body bag?
Giving Thanks
I left that second funeral in a very different frame of mind from when I arrived, and gave thanks to God for my husband and my son. I asked God to keep them both safe, if it was His will.
Last night my son came home from his first year of college for the summer and my husband returned home from work. Together with my son’s girlfriend, we went out to dinner and celebrated the reunion of the family.
Suddenly a bad horse show doesn’t seem important any more.
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