the Lord is my shepherd

This post has been a long time in mental process....

February was one of the hardest months of my recent memory.

It actually started on the third-to-last day of January, when my sister casually - but with a telling tone of concern - asked me if I had heard that my horse, Drem, had had trouble getting up that night.

She'd been lying down for two or more hours, chilled to the bone, the sun long set over the muddy field. She had been struggling, and only struggled harder when her pasturemate was taken to the barn. But she couldn't seem to make it to her feet.

If you know anything about large livestock, you know that being unable to rise is all but the death toll for them - particularly for horses. They are huge, they weigh proportionately far more for the size of their legs than smaller animals and bipeds, and the most athletic thing they are ever called upon to do is the simple act of getting up from a prostrate position - because they are just that heavy.

So I knew immediately to be worried.

She finally got up - and, strangely, behaved normally. A few days of relief passed. But then on February 2 she lay down again - and again she couldn't get up. The vet actually had to force her. A few hours later, it happened a third time.

I was scheduled to work that whole week, but I begged the mercy of my employer so I could go home and be with my horse. The drive home under dark gray skies and spits of snowfall was one of the most dreadful three-and-a-half hours of my life. But I was happy just to see her - standing - even though her eyes were heartbreakingly depressed and her ribs were showing and her appetite was gone.

That week, I was sure that time was short.

Every night before bed I read Psalm 23 to myself out loud - sometimes multiple times, with tears rolling down my cheeks - until my mind was calm enough to sleep. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...

The questions that whirled in my brain were much different than any I'd ever had to confront before in my life. Can I trust God through something like this, even if it doesn't go my way? Who am I, if I'm not a horse owner anymore? How does one get through grief and back to normal? Will my loved ones help me, or will they get annoyed and say "it was just a horse"?

The peace of God does indeed surpass understanding, but it is an incredible fight to grasp it and keep it when it seems like the world is falling apart.

The above picture was taken almost two months later, at the end of March. We still don't know for certain what was wrong with Drem; the only things that seemed "off" on her bloodwork were slightly low selenium and astronomically high potassium. My own belief is that her selenium was the problem that precipitated her high potassium, and those things together weakened her almost catastrophically. I thank God that the vet, even before knowing anything about her bloodwork, gave her a selenium shot the night of February 2 - so that within two or three weeks her strength was already returning, and now she can get up without a hitch. I took a video of it once just so I can go back and watch it and thank God for His miracles.

All this to say....

The peace that God gave me through that very, very hard month was something unexpected.

Sometimes it felt like I had no peace at all. I worried constantly. I called home for updates on her every single day. Even after she appeared to be out of the woods, I would be plagued at night by horrible dreams about her.

But two things sustained me: Psalm 23 - which became my prayer of surrender - and the prayers of the saints on my horse's behalf. Even now I'm amazed at the number of people who were praying for her healing, some of them people I don't even know. Church friends still ask me how she's doing. She might be the most prayed-for horse in the world.

God was honored by their compassion and moved by their words. I wish I could thank every one of them personally for uniting in love for a fellow believer, exactly as the Church is called to do.

If you prayed, thank you. And I thank God for you too.