Hope Rising (24 page)

Troy, Sarah, and I met each other’s wide eyes and said nothing.

River, a bay Arab gelding, was the next to reach in for a visit. He was so small that he had to stand with all of his feet together to reach into the stall. From time to time, he rested his chin on top of his sick friend’s tail.

Throughout our watches during that bitter night, each of us grew more intrigued as horse after horse came to give their special brand of support to their stricken friend. It was as though even these “dumb farm animals,”
as they are so often called, knew the healing value of love.

Troy took the graveyard shift. In a futile attempt to ward off the cold, he made a cocoon of horse blankets and a sleeping bag, burrowing under this during the fifteen-minute intervals between hanging IV bags.

The cold grew so intense that he finally hammered up a horse blanket over the opening behind Quincy’s rump, trying to seal in as much heat as possible. The night ticked on, one frozen minute at a time.

The next morning I layered on most of the coats I owned, bracing myself for the biting cold. I opened the front door and stepped out into the white rush of bone-chilling winter. Earth, sky, and everything in between lay in a frozen milky haze, embalmed under a thick layer of shimmering white filigree.

I was surprised, when the barn came into view through the fog, that the horses weren’t gathered around the gate as they always were, pacing about in anticipation of their breakfast. Instead, they were huddled, football-team fashion, around the blanketed opening into their sick friend’s stall.

I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. Concern for Quincy was seemingly more important than meeting their own need for food. It wasn’t until I wheeled their breakfast bales of hay through the main gate that our herd began to break away from their supportive huddle.

Sarah and I took up the dayshift with Quincy. The bitter cold wore on. From time to time we pulled back the tacked-up blanket and watched the clockwork rotation as our equine family continued to comfort their sick companion.

The horses kept coming, twenty-four hours a day … for four days.

By the fourth day, Troy, Sarah, and I were utterly exhausted. And we knew that Quincy would soon either pass his blockage—or he would die.

In the middle of the day, a small procession of visiting kids who had heard about Quincy’s plight quietly entered the barn. One at a time, in much the same way as the horses in the corral, the children came and comforted our sick gelding. One small boy simply buried his face against Quincy’s shoulder and cried. With a tiny voice meant only for his four-legged pal, I overheard him plead, “Please don’t die … please don’t die.”

After all the kids had their turn at Quincy’s side, they wanted to pray for him. With faith as solid as the earth beneath their feet, they reached out for each other’s hands and laced fingers. The simple prayer that followed would have moved any mountain of the Cascade Range.

Later that afternoon a glimmer of hope shattered the gloom around us. Quincy’s gut began to roil and churn in noisy proclamations. Movement! Something inside was moving! With each rumbling growl, Sarah’s eyebrows shot upward. Hesitant grins split our faces.

Nearly simultaneously the flooded gelding began to urinate. He continued to relieve himself of enormous amounts of fluid every few minutes.

Then came the unabashed herald of what he had been pushing against for the last four days—he flatulated!

“Wahoo!” Sarah and I both cheered and spun a victory dance in the barn. With Quincy’s every root and toot we laughed out loud. Surely angels must have been splitting
their sides in laughter over how excited these two girls were over a horse passing gas!

Within the hour the gelding’s hind end turned into a weapon of mass destruction. Nothing within eight feet was safe from the onslaught. Never in all my life have I ever been so thrilled to see a horse have explosive diarrhea!

By nightfall, Quincy was casually eating and drinking and passing normal manure. The crisis was over. But after administering volumes of pain medications and hanging 157 liters of intravenous fluids, I still believe that it took more than just medicine to heal him. Through all the torment of his illness I believe that his will to keep fighting was fueled by the love and compassion so diligently administered by his equine family. In his time of need he was never alone. As his strength failed, their strength prevailed. I am equally convinced that the loving devotion and prayers of his little fan club played a major role in pulling him back from the brink of death.

The next morning, with great relief, I released Quincy back into the main corral. Each horse, as if their hearts were metallic and he was magnetic north, rotated to face him. Silently, with ears and eyes forward, they came to him in what looked like a protective circle. They investigated Quincy’s entire body, giving special attention to his nostrils and the shaved areas of his neck that still bore the wounds from his being catheterized.

While I watched Quincy’s warm reception back into the herd, I couldn’t help but think the scene felt strangely familiar. And then the nearly forgotten memory came flooding back. There I was in my third grade class, experiencing a similar examination.

I had been out of school for a week following a “Wide World of Sports”-style crash that had left me with twenty-eight stitches in my lip and chin. The day I came back to class there was such a commotion that the teacher finally gave up and allowed the entire class to surround me.

Like a little tomboy put on display for a visiting aunt, I slowly rotated for them all. “Does it hurt?” they asked. “Wow! How many stitches is that?” “Can I touch it?” “Are you okay?” “Does that go all the way through your lip?” “When do you get them out?”

And finally, “We’re glad you’re back. We missed you.”

I couldn’t help but wonder, watching the horses welcome Quincy back to the corral, if the gelding was the recipient of such inquisitive kindness and support. It certainly looked like it. I closed the corral gate behind me and said with a chuckle, “Dumb farm animals? Too bad we’re not all so dumb.”

A Warm Handshake
 

I
T WAS THE
end of a very hot and dusty day. The walk up the hill from the ranch common yard toward our home seemed especially long. Before entering the house, I pulled off my boots and brushed the afternoon dust off my pants. Our guests were already arriving for the evening. We host a weekly group that joins together for dinner, a few songs, and a simple Bible teaching from Troy. The sense of family among the group feels as welcome as a heartbeat.

Everyone there knows that it’s a time when the broken find healing, the weak find support, and the joyful scatter gifts like seeds of pure gold. When we join together as a team, a family, our feeble hands become strong. It is our favorite time of the week.

After saying grace and releasing hands, hungry fingers quickly found their way into every bowl. My little kitchen was filled with dusty bodies bumping and milling about, assisting each other in filling their plates. Above the giggling chaos the phone rang. I navigated the crowd like a bumper car, with a half-eaten baked potato in hand, until I finally reached for the receiver.

It was Ray, Elishah’s father. Even though I didn’t know him well, I could immediately tell that his easygoing
rancher’s style was somehow tightened. Our brief conversation revealed that he had injured his back and was in a great deal of pain. To make matters worse, he had been baling hay at the time. “Can you please send Elishah home to help bring in the hay?” he said through lips that sounded drawn with pain.

“How much hay is down?” I asked while covering my ear to better hear him. “It’s a small field,” he said, and then I heard him tallying to himself. “Maybe two to three hundred bales.” I glanced at Elishah through the hungry, jostling group. Although she is known to us all as a five-foot-one-inch package of pure ranch-bred, rocket-fueled
try hard
, the task was far greater than even she could manage.

My heart began to twist with conflict. I would love to help, but … I glanced around my home at kids and leaders just settling down with paper plates full of supper balanced on their knees. The dinner had already started, and our time together would last until nearly dark.

My gaze lingered on the group. All these folks had come for fellowship, for ministry, for something that would fill their hearts. Then lightning flashed across my tired brain: True happiness is not found in gaining what we don’t have, but in giving what we do. The greatest joy, the greatest peace, the greatest fulfillment within this life is giving what we have, not seeking what we
want
. If this young group truly sought fulfillment, this might be their answer. Abruptly I told Ray that I would call him right back.

I called for everyone’s attention and shared Ray’s plight. Without hesitation the kids agreed wholeheartedly to my proposed solution. With deep gratitude, Elishah
called her father back and simply said, “Don’t worry, Dad; help is on the way.”

Dinner and plates were left on the kitchen counter as everyone began to ready themselves for the task at hand. My husband, Troy, led the charge as kids grabbed hats, gloves, and long-sleeved shirts from the coatrack in the living room, while filing out the front door. Everyone piled into trucks as we made a hasty caravan over the handful of miles that separated Ray’s ranch from ours.

Upon arrival the kids pulled on their gloves and followed the sound of Ray’s baler chugging through the pasture. Like geese in flight the kids ran ahead of the hay truck as it bumped and jerked through the field. That team ferried the hay to the other team of kids on the flatbed, who neatly stacked the endless stream of bales that was being tossed at their feet. Through the eyes of any rancher it was poetry in motion.

I hefted bale after bale onto the groaning flatbed, and I couldn’t help but think of my grandmother. The memory made me smile. I knew she would call this “a warm handshake.” That was her version of giving someone what they needed beyond what they could do for themselves.

The sun balanced on the horizon, suspended in radiant agreement with the day’s work. The field lay washed in soft shafts of orange and yellow light. The tumbling contentment of a nearby stream rose gently to join in the evening chorus of the gathering nighthawks. All life seemed to be celebrating the precious gift of one more day.

I watched the kids, running and laughing through this simple place, a rolling hay field. It seemed as if every step on the fresh cut pasture released a humid wave of grassy
perfume, rich with the fragrance of summer. Yet when bathed in the molten colors of twilight, wafting with the warm fragrance of life, it could have been heaven itself.

After tucking the last load of hay into the barn, the young, benevolent group walked back up to the inviting red ranch house. To everyone’s surprise, Elishah’s mother had waiting a checker-clothed table laden with fresh-baked pies, ice cream, and glass pitchers brimming with sweet mint tea.

Damp from the efforts of the evening, the kids exchanged wet hugs among the group. With contented fatigue and a plate full of pie, they spread out beneath a sprawling tree whose branches were strung with soft yellow bulbs.

I leaned back on an old wooden bench with a tall glass of icy tea and watched these young ones with deep satisfaction. I thought to myself,
This is fellowship. Ministry is not confined to a place or a thing—it is who we are. It is what we do with our heart and our hands. It is everything that we choose to give
.

Above the yellow glow of the lights beyond the dark branches of the trees, as if in agreement, a nighthawk’s song filled the twilight.

Hurdles of Life