On a bumpy van ride home in the middle of a thunderstorm I had a revelation…when we obey God, He does amazing things in our lives. One such act of obedience I never really thought of until now was when I chose to sell my horse.
I got Nobelino when I was a sophomore in high school and was always told how lucky I was to have a dad who would buy me such an expensive horse. I knew this but always felt an immense amount of guilt. As much as I loved riding and Nobelino, I could never get over the crazy amount of money that riding entailed. It also tied me down. I desperately wanted to go out of state for college but knew I couldn’t because of my horse. I would also never truly be independent of my dad because riding was a passion that I couldn’t possibly afford on my own at the time. It is interesting how the things we think will make us happy actually become the causes for our discontentment.
I continued riding all through college and it was very much a part of who I was. I would spend hours a day at the barn and would rearrange all my plans depending on when I had to be at the barn or a horse show. During my senior year of college I began praying about what I should do regarding my horse. I had started getting so stressed about the money and I was beginning to wonder if it was even something I loved to do anymore. Through my prayers God laid it on my heart that it was time to sell the horse I loved so dearly, as hard as that would be. I had to not only say goodbye to my horse but also to my passion and what had been my life for so many years. Little did I know that God had an even bigger plan.
Only a couple weeks into praying, God had found the perfect woman to buy Nobelino, a miracle in itself since with the down economy very few people were buying horses. She was from Minnesota so my horse wouldn’t have to go far; I knew God had found the perfect person to buy my horse.
Saying goodbye was hard. I took one last beautiful fall trail ride, packed up all my stuff (what had become a garage full over the years) and had my closest friends and mom to the barn to bid him farewell. I walked into his stall and gave him one last goodbye hug and we celebrated with German beers from the pub close by.
While surrendering my passion and my horse to God was hard, it was exactly what I needed to do in order to allow Him to pave my way for this trip.
Now, instead of spending this year working as an accountant in the same state I’ve lived in for the past 23 years, I’m traveling the world, doing and seeing things I never would have imagined and it all began with the simple act of obeying what God had called me to do.
P.S. Speaking of doing crazy things…yesterday I was working in the yard and I looked down and there was this large worm type thing that I had cut in half. I picked it up and realized it did not look like any worm I had ever seen so I showed it to one of the African guys. He got super scared and yelled, "COBRA, big snake, bad snake must leave." So we had to quickly drop the baby cobra and leave the area because it is one of the most venomous snakes in Africa. After a quick google search we discovered that it was a spinning cobra that can spit venom that will kill you. So luckily I didn't hold it for too long, but now for the rest of my life I can say I killed a deadly cobra!
