Back in the Saddle...

Have you ever given something up? Something that you love but then turn to hate? Something that no matter how much you seem to love it, it has become a job, another thing to do on your schedule? And you sit and wonder, what happened to the love I had, where did it go? Four years ago I had that happen. I love horses, I always have, or at least for as long as I can remember I have loved them. Then one day, I came home from work, started dinner, and got ready to go riding with my endurance friends, and it hit me, I hated riding, I hated everything about it! I sat in my room, looking out the window at the  trailer pulling in and cried because I just did not want to go out there. I didn't want to ride any horse let alone see one..the love that I once had, died and was replaced with a hatred that I couldn't even bear. My horses had become a source of irritation, anger, and just another job. This had never before happened - I would have to say if you told me to give something up, at one time I would have given everything up by my horse; well until that day.  It took over 18 months before I started really riding again, I mean riding for the joy of it and enjoying it. And over the past couple of years it had to be a job for a little while, making me do something that I was reluctant to do but forcing myself into the world of riding once more has finally changed the hatred that I developed, changed my heart and I am once again .... back in the saddle.
I am riding very frequently again, training for an endurance ride, a set goal that I have to complete a 50 mile ride at the end of August. As every athlete knows, in order to perform at any event, you have to train, prepare you body and mind, and make every effort to make yourself ready. This is what I do with my horses. I help them prepare their body for an event, riding on a frequent time schedule, for a set amount of distance, building their endurance level and muscles in their body to sustain them and me through a given mileage.  And as most athletes know, the muscles take time to build, strengthen, and condition to their maximum level, and all the while, through this training process, the ultimate goal is to build and strengthen the one muscle that controls everything....the heart; the last of the muscles to be fully conditioned, the last muscle to reach the peak level of strength.

The heart is actually a very ugly muscle ( I think you'd agree looking at this picture), organ if you'd prefer, but in its essence the heart is a muscle, it probably works harder at more things than we give it credit. Not only is it required to pump blood through our body, it exchanges bad blood for good blood, and increases its rhythm when needed, providing sustaining life when we are most in need.  The heart holds all of our emotions, love, kindness, hatred, anger, hope, desire, and longings, all of our emotions are wrapped up in our heart. Although it is known that emotions come from our brain, we are reluctant to believe that, if you were to ask someone hurting why they are so sad they would reply 'their heart is broken'. The heart takes a toll in every essence of our life, in every dynamic part of our life, we ask our heart to do .... well, everything.
This weekend I heard a verse that I'm sure I've heard a thousand times before, but it meant something new to me, it rang clearer than it ever has before, I can only equate that it is because I have refound my love for horses and it struck my heart strings. Ezekiel 36:26 "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." I have had many occasions where I wanted a new heart, a refreshed and healed heart. I'm sure you have too. Over my life, I found that, even when I didn't believe in God, He did find a way to give me a new heart, usually when I wasn't looking. He gave me a love for an animal that gave me a renewed spirit when I was a teenager, He gave me my husband who renewed my heart for love when I was most hardened to it, and He gave me friends that I know look at and know for a fact they are nothing but from Him.  Know, at a time when I have a hardened heart toward Him, He is asking me to find a renewed love, to strengthen my heart, condition it, build it up, and find my place with Him once again. This is by far no easy task! Just like an athlete training for an event, this task is not an easy one to accomplish and maybe that is why Ezekiel's passage has a new meaning to me.
I have, in all essence, received a new heart, it happened over 4 years ago. Friends told me over and over they could tell a change in me, although it was not something I saw (I guess just part of the training process). And this little heart has had some events that it has passed through that has torn it, broken it, strangled the life out of it at times, hardened it toward God, hardened it toward life, and yet...through all of that it still beats on.  "I will give you a new heart" what does that mean to me today? It means that while I am training, working hard with my horses to prepare for an intense and long distance ride, preparing their bodies and mine  for an event that will put pressure on them, I am also training my heart and spirit.  Pressuring my heart to spend time, much needed time, with God when my mind and body refuse. Training my spirit to seek Him, when I should be spending time feeding, cleaning, doing laundry. Training to be closer to Him.

"I will give you a new heart...I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." I wish my heart was not so troubled, I know that this is part of my training schedule, fighting through the walls that I have put up, struggling to find a crack; but it would be easier if it were not so thick a wall.  I know how hard it is to push to the end, I know how I feel when riding and we near the end of a training ride and how my horse starts to slow when the trailer is in sight. I know how I ask for her to go a little farther each ride out and use a little more strength, to complete to the end where we stop. And she does, with perked ear and soft eyes, she makes her body and heart push ever on....finishing what I asked her to do.  I hope with all my heart that I can be as strong as my horses are; that I too can complete, push on to where I am asked, to not stop with faint heart and tired body, but to make it to the stopping point with a fresh heart, and joy in my spirit. "I will give you a new heart ..." all I have to do is accept it.