With clammy hands, I gathered my reins and nudged my horse forward toward the starting gate.
I had just witnessed another rider get crushed by her horse, whose misstep at 20+ miles per hour caused it to dive to the ground and roll on its back. It frantically got up, but its rider didn’t. A team of people carried her out in a stretcher and an ambulance took her to the nearest hospital.
While the course was being reset, I was reminded that my love for barrel racing was quite a dangerous sport. And here I was, 12 years old, on the back of a 1,200-pound animal. I trusted my horse deeply, but accidents happen, and the stakes never seemed higher. Our number was announced, signaling our turn to run the course.
I walked my horse to the gate, and I remember a quiet stillness that seemed to take over our surroundings. In that moment, I felt a deeper understanding of what it meant to be in “the valley of the shadow of death”.
I prayed some of my most earnest childhood prayers on the back of my horse. I had no idea that that heart posture would carry through into adulthood. Into broken relationships, heartache in motherhood, and anxiety about the future. When defeat and fear threatened to overtake me, those prayers pushed me to the very edges of my relationship with God.
But they were also where I met the Lord’s provision. In my desperation, I met the presence of God. In my surrender to God’s plan, I received a spirit of peace and glimpses of His glory.
Friends, the valleys will keep coming. They will test us and try to steal our joy. But if we seek God in them, they will also reveal His nature – His goodness, love, and desire to walk alongside us. We are never alone. We are never abandoned. In fact, the valleys hold some of the greatest spiritual breakthroughs we could ever imagine.
Read Psalm 23 when you have a moment.
And that’s the mid-week memo.
Wholeheartedly, Katie
