Ten girls and three horses.

I’ve recently embarked on a journey with a few friends.  We’re working with a group of teen girls this summer.  My heart breaks as we hear some of their stories.  But we move ahead using our horses to teach how life works best when we live it with God in the lead.

Today we introduced the girls to three different horses. Two of our horses are “left-brained”- steady and sure- useful for riding or therapy.

But the third horse, Nim…well, she is different.  Nim is a “right-brained” horse.  She sees life much differently than the other two.  She is anxious and insecure. The scar on her right hindquarter hints to her traumatic past.  Her greatest fear today appears to be a giant tarp in the arena.  The sound of that simple tarp sends the adrenaline coursing through her nervous body.

The scars of Nim’s past are evident. Unfortunately, many horses like Nim have been mishandled by bully handlers and it has reinforced their fears.   My friend, Jen, has spent years working to help them overcome their fears and learn to trust again.  She finds great joy in teaching them that they are safe in her hands. It is a beautiful thing to witness the blossoming of these powerful animals.

As I watch Nim, I realize again the similarities between girls and horses.  Maybe what touches me is that I see in her a reflection of what I have walked through myself.  Every woman and girl seems to be driven by the same two questions:

• Am I worthy to be loved?
• Will I be safe?

If you are a man with a wife, girlfriend, or daughter in your life, you should pay close attention to what I am about to write. Like Nim, we are wired to blossom into something beautiful but we have too often been mishandled, misused, or misunderstood.

Am I worthy to be loved?  We spend our lives looking for someone or something to answer this question.  We ask our parents. Most do their best to answer.  But some…well, don’t.  Maybe we look to friends to affirm us, but how many friends can devote the time and energy to answer such questions?

We chase after our quest for loveliness with beauty fads, shopping trips, and gym memberships.  If we could just be beautiful, skinny, fashionable, popular, smart…enough.  Maybe then?  We seek anything to make us feel valuable.

More often, we look to men for some hope that we are worth loving.  Unfortunately, we are bitterly disappointed because few men are willing to lay down their lives for us and love us unconditionally.  So many don’t understand how to communicate love to us.  Some will use us for their own gratification, or worse, bully us until we are more fearful of true intimacy…more closed off.  Few see the beauty and potential that God sees.

Will I be safe? This question is one we try to answer for ourselves and so, we control.

Without Jesus, I am a control freak at heart.   With Jesus, I am a control freak in rehab. We spend every minute protecting and providing for our own safety.  Some fear being put in a cage.  Others desperately seek to be safe in a cage.  Survival is about safety.  Like Nim, we avoid things that frighten us.  If forced, we  “overreact”.  Do they understand what it feels like to feel so unsafe?  We stay trapped inside our protective shell to stay emotionally safe.  Like Nim, maybe our scars from past hurt are visibly evident every day.

As I watched this little horse today give Jen the best that she had in the face of her fears, it made my heart swell with love for her.  She is not a showy, confident, left-brain like our other two horses.  But when she tried…you could feel her willingness to believe that she was worthy to be loved and desperately wanting to be safe in those hands at the end of the rope.

Girls, there is only One who HAS ALREADY answered both of these questions completely for us.

God calls to us to look to Him for HIS answer.  He is the One who created us with all the beauty that is inside of us.  Sometimes the pain and disappointments of life leave us closed up believing that we are not worthy of love and never can we safely open ourselves up again.

But then we see again His love poured out in the life of His Son, Jesus…for us.  We are worth the price of His life.   He gently calls us again to listen to His voice…to follow His loving hands at the end of that rope.   He made you to live safely under His protective care, not in your emotionally guarded shell.  Look to Him every day to answer these questions. And then, step out to be who He made you to be.  Take a risk with real confidence in the One who holds the end of your rope.

Men, do you want to see her blossom?  Work WITH God in this process.  Love her patiently, respecting her fearful emotions…no strings attached.  Refuse to crush her with harsh words, negligence, or worse, bully her with ridicule.  Love always protects. Remind her again and again that you, like Christ, will love her, even if she stumbles. Communicate that she can be safe to be herself with you.  

And then wait…even with her scars, like Nim, she will blossom into something beautiful.

Ten girls and three horses.

All of them beautiful, all of them loved, and all of them purposed to blossom safely in the hands of a loving and patient Handler, and pour out that beauty upon this world.