The Horse That Changed Me

When God wants you to grow, He often allows you to become uncomfortable.

Sometimes God uses horses to teach us lessons that people cannot.

This is the story of how a horse taught me something my family and friends had been trying to tell me for years.

What I learned that day became the driving force behind what I do now. It is my way of making restitution to the horses and people who had to deal with who I used to be. By God’s grace, I am no longer that person.

My first personal breakthrough with horses came in February of 2004.

I had spent more than a year working through a home-study horsemanship program with my mare. We were doing well—really well. I was making progress, advancing through the levels, and I was proud of how far we had come.

Maybe a little too proud.

I decided to attend a week-long intensive course at the International Study Center in Ocala. On the first day, I learned that the level of success I would have with my horse would always be connected to her willingness to be my partner.

On the second day, we were given a simple assignment.

Open the stall door and wait.

We could not enter the stall.

We could not use treats.

We could not call the horse.

We could not use any training techniques.

All we could do was stand there and wait for the horse to choose us.

I was confident. My mare and I had a great relationship. We were succeeding in everything we were doing. Surely she would walk right over to me.

I opened the stall door.

She looked at me.

Sighed.

Then put her nose back in the corner.

I waited.

Nothing.

I turned my back to create curiosity.

Nothing.

I sat in the doorway to be less intimidating.

Still nothing.

As the minutes passed, the rest of the class left for the next lesson. Horse after horse walked out of the barn with their owners.

I was still sitting there.

Alone.

Waiting.

Forty-five minutes later, my mare finally decided it might be okay to spend time with me.

I sat in that doorway and cried.

The realization hit me all at once.

The relationship I thought was so great had been mostly one-sided.

My mare had always been willing. She never fought me. She never acted “mare-ish.” She did everything I asked.

But she wasn’t choosing me.

And deep down, I knew why.

The problem wasn’t her.

It was me.

For years, my family and friends had been telling me I was controlling.

The dishwasher had to be loaded a certain way.

The towels had to be folded a certain way.

Everything had to be done my way.

If it wasn’t, I got frustrated.

Then I would complain that nobody wanted to help me.

My friends used to joke that there was the right way, the wrong way, and then there was Jen’s way.

My family didn’t find it nearly as funny.

Standing in that barn, my horse told me what no one else had been able to make me hear.

She couldn’t speak.

But that day, I finally listened.

That lesson started a chain of events that changed my life. It made me a better horseman, a better wife, a better mother, and a better person.

My family’s life became easier because a horse taught me something I was unwilling to learn from people.

Since that day, I’ve tried to live with two questions:

“What have my loved ones been trying to tell me that I haven’t been willing to hear?”

And even more importantly:

“What have I resisted learning that God has been trying to teach me?”

Sometimes the greatest lessons don’t come from words.

Sometimes they come from a horse quietly standing in the corner of a stall.