Only The Beginning

My filly is out of an unregistered Quarter Horse mare named Annabelle Oakley and a Quarter Horse stud names Jackies Gold Bee. Her name is Windsome Belle, but I call her 'Chisum' because 'Windy' was too girly, even for her. She was born in a wind storm, but 'Winsom' was a mare in a book I read a long time ago, and I liked the name. She is almost two years old now, but the picture up on this page was taken the day she was born.

So what? I know, you are getting impatient. Well, Chisum's story is something I promise to tell you one day. But there's one aspect of her life that I can tell you now. Being the only mare on the place, she gets to be alone all the time. For all of her nearly two years of life, she has not run with any other horses. As a result of this, she's had plenty of time to study them. It's clear by how she handles herself that she thinks she is all grown up. She never gave a bit of trouble loading and backing out of a trailer, being caught, tied up or having her feet picked out. "Why throw a fit? If the big boys can do it, so can I!" she seems to say.

She's had a pretty full life so far, but her mind isn't big enough to comprehend what is in store for her. In a month or two, she will learn all about saddles, bits, cowboys and ropes and she just won't know what to do with herself! But up until now, she has not been ready. She is almost there. Of course, from her point of view, there isn't much she doesn't know. She has the layout of the pens memorized, knows where to get feed and water and what time the two-leggeds always show up to talk to her and feed her. She thinks she knows pretty much everything, and the dullness of so much wisdom has made her cocky and perhaps a little disappointed. "Is this all there is to life?" she might say. "I was hoping there was more."

Well, there is more. A lot more. And real soon, when Chisum is ready, she'll find out just how much she knows and get the humiliating chance to measure that against what she doesn't know. Life will lose its dullness, and all the petty things like that ol' red hen in her feed bucket will lose priority in her day. New things that aren't so petty will take its place, like climbing over deadfall and chasing a cow. In her shrunken little world of the corral and dogs and chickens, she can't imagine there being more to it. She's figured it all out. But you and I know she hasn't. She probably wouldn't listen if I tried to tell her that, so she will have to see for herself.

When I put myself in her 'shoes', I see how much alike we are. I'm a young woman who thinks she's seen it all, but God knows my destiny and certainly does have a lot to teach me. There's a world out there, a life I haven't even begun to live...and here I am at the starting gate thinking I've already run the race! Everything up to now has been calculated preparation on his part, and slow monotony for me looking back. It's easy to smear it all with the dust of the 'everyday' and sigh and look over the fence, like Chisum, thinking the world is so dull. I probably wouldn't understand God spelling out to me what's next in my life anymore than she would understand a lecture about getting the right lead. That's why timing is so important to God. He doesn't waste our everyday moments telling us stuff that won't make sense right now.

If you are still with me, let's try to grasp a bigger picture. A mere 90 years of life on earth is really only like Chisum's two, and my twenty-four. We have the rest of our lives to live. This part is the morning of life, the getting-out-of-bed and brushing-your-teeth part. From here, we enter ETERNITY, where life will really get started. At the end of a lifetime here, we are nowhere near halfway to the halfway mark. As immortal souls, we have an unending life ahead of us. It stretches on beyond what our minds can scope. I hope you read what I'm trying to tell you. I guess the best way to end this is to ask you what your eternity will be like. Because you do have a choice where you will spend it, and who you will spend it with. All this preparation, all this dullness; all the thoughts you've had about how much you know of life, it's just the beginning of the beginning. And when the next chapter begins, like Chisum, we will have to humble ourselves before our Master and submit in order to truly live our destiny and fulfill our purpose. Because there is more. A lot more.

Now I hope this gives you some food for thought.