I felt God

My friend told me one day I'd find this beautiful. At the time I thought there was no way I would ever see this as "beautiful"....but I'm getting there. I'm finally able to see some beauty in this and I wanted to write about it.

Hannah loves riding horse. She's been riding ever since she was very young (I can't remember just how young). She has basically grown up on a horse being her sitters family have 4 horses. She just loves it so much.

Although I didn't grow up riding horses, I've always loved horses and loved riding. Now I get a chance to ride when I want and I'm so grateful for it.

We were recently at their house for a party and they were getting the horses ready as people wanted to ride. Being Hannah was basically blind in both eyes, I was very hesitant to let her ride despite her pleas. But then my friend said she thought she would be fine as she's proven herself many times she can do it. So I decided to let her ride with me walking along side.



Here she is on the horse with her friend, Kabeer.

In all honesty she did great. She was born to ride horse.

After awhile, we were switching riders. I decided I wanted to ride. While Hannah's friend wanted to stop, Hannah did not. So I let her ride with me. She was doing so great.

I didn't anticipate us riding into the woods and thought we would just ride around the yard, but I wasn't too worried when the group decided to go into the woods. We were riding a very gentle, older horse and we had ridden this horse so many times.

We were at the tail end of the 4 horses which worked well for us....or so I thought. At one point, we were going down a hill and would be taking a road at the bottom of the hill.

While the other horses walked down the hill quickly, I made our horse go very slow and it worked well. But then disaster struck.

When the other 3 horses got to the bottom of the hill to the road, they immediately started running which no one expected. Because we were a little behind and our horse does not like to be behind, when we got to the road, our horse took off in a sprint to catch up to the other horses.

I knew we were in trouble.

I tried hard to get the horse to slow down, stop, anything, but he wouldn't. He kept sprinting and kept going faster and faster.

Hannah was sitting in front of me and was hanging onto the horn. I basically just had the reins I was hanging onto. I didn't want to hang onto Hannah as I knew if I fell, I would potentially take her with me.

I didn't want to scare Hannah but I knew I wouldn't be able to hang on. I just kept telling her to hang on and hang on tight. She wasn't scared but the thought of her getting hurt terrified me to death.

Then it happened---I was thrown off.

I remember hitting the ground but I wasn't focused on that. What I remember so clearly is watching my "blind" 4-year-old daughter on a sprinting horse. I can't begin to explain the terror was feeling. I was up from the ground in record time and screaming Hannah's name and screaming for her to hang on.

The riders ahead heard me screaming and stopped their horses. The horse Hannah was riding continued to run to the other horses and then stopped.

Hannah stayed on the entire time.

When I caught up to the horse, I immediately took Hannah and held her. I'll never forget her trembling bottom lip as she struggled hard not to cry and reassure me that she was okay.

As I held her so tight, I realized just how bad this could've been and started crying. That's when Hannah let her tears loose. I asked her if she knew what had happened and she said she knew I had fallen off, but she just kept hanging on and yelled to me to see if I was okay. She said she wasn't scared but as time has gone on she has shown signs that it was very traumatic for her and now she's scared to even get on a horse. :(

It is only God that kept her on that horse and safe. The horse was going so fast. I'm pretty sure if I had been a solo rider, I probably could've hung on but I'm honestly not positive. But I'm 40 years old with 2 good eyes.

Here there was a 4-year-old, "blind" girl who by some miracle stayed on a running horse. Even when she knew her mommy had fallen, she kept her cool. Any other kid probably would've panicked and fell off themselves.

I don't know how she did it. I'm so amazingly proud of her....and so grateful to God. I know God was taking care of Hannah. There is just no other explanation.

Yeah, I'm sure many are questioning my motherly decision to let her ride on that horse in the first place, considering her situation. Trust me, I'm questioning myself with that so much and I've cried many tears over it. I think about what "could've happened", what "should've happened", how close I came to something very bad happening. I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive myself for what Hannah went through.

And yet, I was able to feel God. We know He protected Hannah and was on that horse with her when he started sprinting. I shudder to think of everything that could've happened.

But it didn't.

We're both safe. My fall could've been much worse. I was pretty sore for about a week but that was it. What if I would've broken something? What if I would've injured my hand or arm and couldn't work? What if I hadn't been wearing a helmet?

Although I'm still not seeing this as "beautiful", I can see the beauty. I'm so grateful God protected us. While I can't get the picture of Hannah alone on a sprinting horse out of my mind, I also take a look at her and I know we are so blessed to have her here and nothing worse happened.

And she is so beautiful. God is so good.