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I was sitting around one night without a lot to do, so I turned on the computer and checked my e-mail. My friend Susie was on, so we were chatting back and forth.
Susie and I are both Christians, so a lot of the time the conversation turns to the subject of God. We're very curious about God and what He thinks of things here on earth.
I told her that I was a constant pray-er. I talk to God on an almost constant basis. I laughed and said he probably gets sick of my chatter.
She said that she did the same thing, and she agreed, He probably gets pretty sick of listening to her, too. Then she said that sometimes she feels guilty because she sometimes drifts off while she's praying. I told her that I did the same thing. We got to wondering if He thought we were rude.
That conversation with Susie hung in my mind for a few days. What did God think when we fell asleep in the middle of a prayer? Susie's a lot better Christian that I am. My halo gets rusty off and on. Sometimes the horns on my head push the thing plum out of the way. Does that mean that I'm a hypocrite? Am I not as secure in my Christianity as I should be?
Now, just as anyone knows, Christian or not, we all question our faith at one time or another. And, for most of us, if we stew on it long enough, the answers come. The answers came to me last night.
I was riding with a friend. I was tuning on my mare, working on her lead changes and collection, and Traci was working a colt for her mom. Our kids had ridden off somewhere to go play on their horses. The barn started getting dark, so we hung it up for the night, but the kids weren't back yet.
I still had the mare tacked up, so I rode out looking for them. I rode about 5 miles, and they were no where to be found. I couldn't even pick up their tracks, the only horse tracks that I saw were mine. I rode back to the barn, and Traci asked me if I had found the girls. I told her that I rode about 5 miles out and couldn't even see the trace of a horse shoe.
Worry set in, and a bit of anger, too. The moon was full, but it was dark out. Those kids should be back by now. . .
Traci hops in the pickup and went out looking for them. I went back to the trailer and untacked my mare. Finally, I saw the pickup lights, coming slow. Kasey was leading a paint horse behind her App and Jess was trying to slow her Arab down a little. Kasey came over to apologize to me for dragging Jess out 10 miles without telling anyone where they were going. It was O.K., kids will be kids. I just told them that they needed to not go so far and let us know where they were because if something happened, we needed to be there to help.
They both nodded their heads and promised not to do that anymore.
This was Lesson 101 in Tolerance. God knows that I'm not perfect. He knows that I'm going to go out riding and forget that it's getting dark, and I need to get home. He knows that I'm just a kid who's out playing, and sometimes I forget what time it is.
Now, this brought on a memory. A real old memory.
I was about four or five years old. My dad had this big recliner in the living room at the ranch I grew up on. He'd come in from working all day, eat supper, work on the books or whatever, and go sit in his recliner. I'd crawl up there with him, and he'd put his arm around me, and we'd have a chat. Didn't matter what we talked about, sometimes it was the cows, sometimes it was horses. I even remembered that one time we spent the evening talking about sheep.
We'd gab and gab, and somewhere in the middle of the conversation, I'd drift off to sleep. I think that he would, too. Next morning, I'd wake up in my bed, though. Safe and sound and no one was ever mad at me. Least of all, my dad. He'd come in the next night, eat supper, do some business and sit in his recliner. Next thing you know, there I'd be.
No one ever told me it was rude to fall asleep in the recliner with my dad.
This is Lesson 101 in Love. God looks at me like a tired child who really wants to spend time with her Father. She really wants to be with Him and work out her problems, but she's exhausted, so she falls asleep in the comfort of His arms.
I'll always have questions of faith. I'm only human, but when I have questions, I have to know that the answers will come. I just have to be on my game enough to listen to the answers and accept them.
October, 2001
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