Dear 0-1,
Your mom had a difficult time giving birth to you. In fact, the scar from the c-section will be
with her for the rest of her life. A
scar to show that both of you are here for a reason this season.
I remember the first time I saw you. You were nestled in a bed of straw – content
and worry-less. Your mom watched you
carefully – protective of you and cautious of me. Cautious and protective because you’re
crippled. Your front legs hold you just
high enough to nurse and they wobble all sorts of ways when you walk, but they
work. They’re just high enough and just strong enough.
What is “just high enough or just strong enough?” Is there such a thing or place?
I remember thinking to myself time and time again – “how and
why are you still alive?” I questioned
Ian’s reason for keeping you mainly because it was so painful for me to watch
you move. I caught myself looking away
on more than one occasion. Pathetic, but
true.
Will you ever run and play like the others? Your steps are labored and hard - and look to
be exhausting. And yet, you do it. You take one step at a time – one hoof in
front of the other. Crippled to my eyes,
but not to my soul.
You see, there is this amazing thing about looking at things
with eyes of faith. Faith in the fact
your head does reach just high enough
to live. Faith in the fact that you’re
no longer in the barn yard, but roaming the small pasture below our house –
wobbly legs and all. Faith.
Who am I to question someone’s crippled state? Am I not crippled myself?
Crippled with the fear of failure?
Crippled with anxiety of deadlines to be met and
expectations of others?
Labored with exhaustion of keeping a household alive and
well, while remaining sane?
Struggling to rest in His presence – the place where I need
to be most – each and every day.
Crippled by a lack of faith.
……………..
And then I remember the story. The story of people responding in faith to
Jesus – rewarded by blessings greater than they could imagine. The story found in Luke 5:18-25 that gives
hope to the crippled and to his faith-filled friends. A story of healing – not just of one’s body,
but of the soul as well.
……….......
You are here, grazing with your mama -right below my home,
ever-present in my life, for a reason.
You were born in the winter of 2012 to teach me about faith. A faith that believes in the impossible and
trusts in that which is unseen to most.
Unseen to the naked eye, but evident through one’s belief in that which
is eternal.
I named you a while back.
A name that suits you well. And
when I walked to the barn yesterday and caught a glimpse of you trekking up the
hillside with your mama. I smiled to myself and then yelled hello across the
pasture.
“It’s a beautiful day isn’t it Grace!?”
You looked up, and I know you were nodding in agreement.
and I swear I heard a whisper in the wind … “A
“grace-filled” day indeed.”
With all His grace and thankfulness for you,
Lindsay
