My Testimony: The Teen Years

Next stop on the journey of my life is my teen years. While I asked the Holy Spirit into my life at five I had (and still have) much to learn. Little did I know that was only the beginning.

I jumped around in school a fair bit. From public to homeschool to private and home again. My friends tease me about my first day at private school. Partway through my freshman year I made the switch. I had friends already on campus but there were a handful of people I hadn’t yet been acquainted with through church or other local venues.

During lunch I ended up in the crossfire of a hacky sack fight. At least that’s what I thought. I got hit pretty hard in the face with one of those little suckers and it gave me a fat lip. Later, Mike left a note in my locker apologizing and who knows what got into me but I accepted and within a week we were dating. Everyone says he chucked it at me on purpose. I never did get a confession out of him though.

He was fun. A musician and a BMX biker. I spent a lot of time watching him ride and he spent a lot of time at the barn where I kept my horse. Eventually I realized that at fifteen it was unlikely I’d found my soul mate and we broke up. He preferred his bass guitar and I preferred my horses.

I poured everything into basketball and horses. We played in a park and recreation league so basketball isn’t much to write about but my horses were life. My parents had helped me buy a pony when I turned eleven then at sixteen I purchased an appaloosa mare for 4-H and fun that journeyed with me through nearly all her last days. A year and a half after I got her I also bought a big mean mare named Angel whom I competed with in three-day eventing and some bigger shows.

I worked and rode and worked some more with a bit of school thrown in. School came easy so I didn’t have to put forth much effort to get good grades. It worked well when I returned home and did correspondence courses because I could finish all the work in no time and be off riding the horses. The only problem is I got really sick that year and ended up having to make up that time.

Sometime that year God asked me this question. Whom do you trust?

As a self-sufficient, somewhat arrogant teenager whose parents also took great interest in raising right, I knew that I could be trusted, I was paving my way.

So God conducted a test.

By this time I had finally bought myself a car, also a horse because it was a 66 Mustang. The very same one that introduced my husband and I but that’s a different story. I worked at McDonald’s and cleaned horse stalls at a local barn several miles closer to the freeway than my parents house.

I remember coming home from my shift and heading straight over to muck poo. No one was home so I worked in peace. Scoop and dump, scoop and dump. Then I jumped in my Stang to head home in time for dinner.

Click…

Click…

The darn thing wouldn’t start. I didn’t have a cell phone, no one was home at the barn and there weren’t any close neighbors that I knew. I tried it again and got the same dead battery sound so I decided to walk. At least it was still light and I thought I might be able to make it to the payphone at the bar by the highway.

I kept myself busy by singing and marching. But then I heard a deep whinny. The unique voice immediately caught my attention. Across the next field I could see a sorrel horse and a spotted one running laps of a small paddock.

Strange.

I marched on as the late fall chill began to seep into my clothes. He hollered again in that deep voice that I’d only ever heard from my “little big man pony”. But why here? My heart thumped twice as fast as my feet and I hurried toward the house where the two were stabled. Could that really be my horses? The voice was unmistakable and the closer I got I could see that the markings were familiar too but I was hiking on a back road miles from my house. It seemed impossible.

With a lump like stale french fries in my throat I gathered up my courage, went up the drive and knocked on the strangers door. When a woman answered I could hardly find the words to speak. “Are those…do you…is there a chance you have my horses?”

The creases on her forehead smoothed as she smiled. “Oh I’m so glad you’ve come, we put signs up and called the Sheriff but no one has claimed them I didn’t know what to do.” Her story spilled out as she grabbed a jacket and lead rope. “They were running down the road and so close to the freeway, I feared if I didn’t stop them they’d get hit by a car. How did you find me?”

I started to tremble. A small voice whispered to my soul as I recounted my afternoon. You didn’t find them, I knew all along and I led you to them.

I knew then that I could not be trusted. I would not be making my way into the future unless by the grace of God.

He took away my greatest love, replaced it with the knowledge of His love for me and returned my hearts desire before I even had time to miss them. What a gracious God who loved me enough to teach me one of my first lessons in surrender.

That day I gave him my life not just an invitation into my heart. He became Lord.

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