When we are weak, He is strong

I had quite a picture of life the other morning...... one of those moments where I could have burst into tears or busted up laughing at the same time.

Charsie came in from doing chores in tears...she was mad and totally frustrated because as she was feeding the horses they decides to escape out of their pen. They began running around like a herd of wild horses. They are quite a herd when they are all together. They are a bunch of beautiful, strong, healthy horses, but they each have a history with scars and issues.

We have a sweet gal living with us, her name is Kelsie and she works at a ministry that rescues abused horses and they bring kids in that need some extra loving and they let them groom, ride, and take care of the horses and the ranch staff give the kids some one on one lovin' and attention and tell them about Jesus.

So one of the "herd" of our horses is Kelsie's that has retired from the ranch and it is a draft horse, Kelsie also owns an Arabian...you can not get more opposite than these 2.

We also have a horse that was given to us because he is a great horse but he has issues...and just needs a little extra TLC, and an extra measure of patience to work around his issues...He could be dangerous to someone if they are not paying attention and know how to work with him and if you work with him and work around his issues..he it a great horse that does his job well.

Then we have another horse that was sold to us for $1.00...she is a beauty and a sweetie, but she has a club foot, which you would never know because with the proper care it will never even affect her.

Then we have a horse that was injured as a colt and his owner at the time just doctored on him and nursed him back to health. He is perfectly fine other than he has an outrageous scar that runs the length of his butt.

Esther's horse we have had since she was born and when she was very young she got her foot caught in a fence and nearly tore her foot completely off. She is a beautiful horse but she's pretty gimpy sometimes and has a deformed hoof from the intense scar.

Then we have 2 others that are fine.....

So this scarred powerful menagerie of horses are running wild looking quite beautiful, but acting totally out of control...so we all come from our various places to help corral this wild herd...

We have Charsie who is crying in frustration, Kole who is limping from a knee injury from football the night before, my dad who was less than 12 hrs. released from the hospital from a 2 day failed attempt at placing a stint in his heart...and me who is 6 months prego and have a distinct waddle to me. The only full able bodied person was my mom, a grandma of 22 grandchildren in her early 60's. So mom, rounded the horses right into our broken, limping, crying, waddling circle of people and we got them corralled.

I was laughing at how silly we looked, all these broken up people rounding up these scarred up horses that we take care of and love and provide for and enjoy and use and realized this is such a picture of life...

We have horses that all have a history, scars and and a few issues that are taken care of by us, their owners, and loved all the more with all their scars and issues...just as we are loved all the more by our Lord even with all our junk and brokenness, if we just let HIM take care of us and draw from HIS strength and wisdom and direction. And our Lord loves us, and uses us and works with our issues and scars and heals us and makes us strong and beautiful.

2 Corinthians 12:9-11
The Message (MSG)

My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.