I am often asked the question, " How do you know when to move on when you are training a barrel horse?"  "When do you go from the walk to the trot to the canter to the run?"    The answer to this varies with horses, their ages, their bone structures and their minds.  You must make sure that the horse understands each stage of the training before stepping up to the next level.  In other words, you introduce the knowledge to him, repeat the experience until he understands it, test to see how he is handling it and then it is crucial that you move on.  If you do not move on, the horse becomes stale, bored, stuck, and does not advance.  If you move on before he understands, he will become scared or confused.  Moving on at the right time is crucial to the horse becoming useful and successful. 

Isn't that what our lives are made up of?  We go through life gaining knowledge, then experiencing situations and then living through the situations.  How we handle a situation depends upon how much knowledge we have, how much experience we have and what our mindset is.  We then either move on or become stuck in the mire of the past happenings.  The Bible tells us that there is a time for everything.  Read Ecclesiastes 3.  It is a beautiful passage.  There are times when we are sad and times to dance, a time to laugh and a time to grieve. 

When I experience times that are hard for me, I know that I am in training and that If I let God use the hard times in my life that I will move to a new level in my Faith. From my experiences in the past, I remind myself that I will not get stuck in grief.  I will remember what the Word of God says and draw strength from its truths and pray to handle hard experiences as God would have me to. 

Today was a day that presented a hard experience to me.  Back in about 1994 or 95, Jerry Biscone asked me to train a horse for he and his wife, Colleen.  He was at Windward Stud Farms and asked me to come over and ride the horse and see if I thought he would make a barrel horse.  This was my first look at DB Quincy who was nicknamed "Chip".  He was double bred Sir Quincy Dan and was eye popping beautiful.  He was a bay horse with no markings that would make you do a double take when you walked past him.  I wasn't real impressed with his breeding, but after riding him and hearing about how fast Jerry thought he could run, I agreed to take him home and put him into training.  Jerry already had him real broke, so within 3 weeks, he was eating the barrels.  He had a great desire to run and turn a barrel. The horse had a beautiful eye and was smart as a whip.  He was strong, arrogant, sure of himself and fast. 

The most fun part of the horse business is making new friends through the horses. The Biscones became special friends through Chip.  Colleen was just starting back running barrels and they were so much fun to work with.  Even though they live in Berthoud, Colorado and I live in Wayne, Oklahoma,  we have managed to ride and train together each year since we met.  Chip and Jerry and Colleen had some great times and some scary times together.  A couple of years ago, he went through colic surgery and came out better than new.  They decided to sell him last year and once again he made the journey to my house.  The horse had never limped in his life, but when he was vet checked, a bone chip in the knee was found and removed. He had made a lot of fast runs with a bone chip in his knee.  He then took a rest and came back here again to be sold. (I can't count the times that he has been at my house.)

 

To make this story short, he became very lame and was diagnosed with an avulsion fracture to the accessory carpal bone in the back of the right knee.  After many trips to the vets and everything possible being done, it was decided that the only humane answer would be to put him to sleep.  Jerry and Colleen were planning the trip to Oklahoma when Jerry was called to jury duty.  I assured them that I could handle all the arrangements of preparing the grave, assisting the vet and burying Chip.  I prayed for a brave heart and asked God to help me to be able to help my friends.  The planning of the grave site was the first decision, then finding a person with a back hole to prepare the grave and finally, coordinating the vet to come out when my husband could come and cover the grave. It all seemed so simple until we started on the arrangements.  Then I began to feel a terrible sadness.  My heart began to feel like it was being torn.  The grief began creeping over me. 

When it came time today to say good-bye to Chip, my friend Kathie O'Brien came driving in.  I asked her what she was up to and she said, " I have come to help you."  God knew that I was not able to complete the task for Jerry and Colleen, and He sent Kathie here.  When Chip was safely in his grave, Kathie walked back around to the other side of the house where I had waited.  I tried to say "Thank You", but I couldn't speak.  She didn't speak a word to me.  Our eyes met and I knew that what she had just experienced was very hard for her. She had stood in my place for Jerry and Colleen.  As she walked past me to her car to leave, her jaw was set and she was marching on.  I was reminded that I had seen that look on her face before.  She is a "movin on" person.  She had that same "movin on" look to her face when she fought and beat cancer.  She was a reminder to me that we experience life, hurt, grieve, and then move on. 

Perhaps today you are stuck in some area of your life.  Stuck is not an option for us.  We must learn to experience life and move on.  One example of this in the Bible is when David's son was dying.  David fasted and lay all night on the earth for 7 days.  When his child died, he arose from the earth, and washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes and came into the house of the Lord and worshipped.  Then he came to his own house and ate.  You can read about this in 2 Samuel 12 .  His servants inquired as to why he did this.  He said, " While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live?  But now he is dead, why should I fast?  Can I bring him back again?  I shall go to him, but he shall never return to me."  David was "movin on".  He got up and went back to living life. 

Paul tells us in the book of Philippians to forget the things that are behind us and to reach forward to the things ahead.  It is impossible to open a door ahead if you are holding on to one behind you.  I am reminded today to remember the wonderful things that God brought into my life through the horse, Chip. I am reminded that God is in control of all things, but  He cannot guide something that is standing still.  May we all be "movin on" to what is ahead with great expectation in our hearts.  There is a time for everything.  Just remember that time never stands still and neither should we.