Hi Friends,
This week my heart is broken with the tragedy at Uvalde this week. The pictures of the young victims keep popping up on Facebook. They look so similar to the kids I work with at Wonder Wood Ranch. Then I see a picture of the shooter. He looks like the kids I work with too. So. Much. Pain. So much brokenness and ugliness and awfulness. Sometimes it seems that evil always wins.
But then again, maybe not always.
As I sit and look at the faces, and look away because I cannot bear to look any longer, I remind myself that evil may have its way for a day, but God's love is stronger. Hope is stronger. Wonder is stronger. And every day that I bring a little more love, a little more hope, a little more wonder to a hurting world is a day that evil does not win after all.
It works kind of like this . . .
Wonder Changes the World
He came from a world so different from my own. Gangs, drugs, violence. Fear. Fear he tried to strangle with a tough-guy exterior and tattoos that weren’t quite covered by the long sleeves of his hoodie.
He was fifteen years old.
Too young to spend every day, every minute looking over his shoulder, waiting to be jumped, or shot, or knifed. Too young to need the rough gang persona to survive.
He stepped out of the city’s car with three other kids and shuffled, pants hanging low, down the path to our barn.
The city’s street team worker stepped beside me. “Juan almost didn’t come.”
“I’m glad he did.”
She nodded. Once a month she brought gang-impacted youth to our Wonder Wood Ranch to ride horses, do archery, and get out of the gang environment for a few hours.
Typically, I could see the difference in them the moment they stepped from the car. Their shoulders relaxed, they stopped fidgeting, they forgot, for a time, they had to be hyper-vigilant to get by.
But Juan’s shoulders stayed rigid.
I followed behind the boys, picking up my pace until I passed them. Then, I motioned toward the hay. “Sit. Let’s get started.”
They sat, Juan on the edge of a bale, his eyes not meeting mine.
I reviewed horse safety, told them all the fun things we would do, asked if anyone had ridden a horse before (no one had), and still Juan stared at the ground, his features hard, his mouth pressed into a line.
After my talk, we ate some hot wings, visited the treehouse, and then it was time for riding. I saddled my husband’s horse, Smokey, grabbed the lead rope, and led him to the mounting block. My other volunteers did the same with three other horses.
Juan put on a helmet and walked up to Smokey.
I explained how to mount, how to sit up straight, how to relax his hips and let his body move with the horse’s gait.
Then Juan stepped up the mounting block, put his left foot in the stirrup, and swung his right leg around the horse. His face softened. “I’ve never been on a horse before.”
I smiled.
“This is my first time on a horse.”
I grinned.
“I’ve never ridden a horse. This is my first time.”
I tried not to chuckle as I led Smokey forward on the path through the woods around our property.
After three seconds, Juan spoke again, his voice faster now, a little more breathless. “This is my first time riding on a horse. I’ve never ridden. I’ve never been on a horse. This is my first time.”
I glanced back to see him sitting tall, chin up, face aglow with delight. And there, before my eyes, a hardened gang-impacted kid transformed from a tough-guy youth into an excited little boy. A little boy who kept talking. “This is my first time on a horse …”
That’s the power of God’s wonder in our lives. That’s the power of finding the beauty that God places around us, and letting ourselves be caught up and carried by it. By him.
God leaves none of us, not even a kid whose life is characterized by fear and violence, without glimpses of his glory. He leaves none of us without hope. And hope, glory, is found in these moments of wonder.
In Exodus 15:11 (NIV), Miriam sings, “Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?” And in Genesis 28:17 (NIV) Jacob declares, after seeing the stairway to heaven, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
God gives us glimpses of that stairway, that gate, in our own lives, when we need it most. When we’re afraid, when we’re trying to act tough, when we think that there’s no way out and no other life available to us but one of hurt and harm. That’s when God uses wonder to break down the barriers in us so that we can see the beauty around us, and the beauty of his work in our lives.
After Juan rode Smokey, he was a different kid for the rest of our time together. He smiled, he laughed, he ate s’mores and looked me in the eye. And he found strength to face his life and make better choices because, on the back of a horse, he could see new hope for the first time in a long time. Maybe for the first time ever.
Through God’s wonder, we, too, can see anew.
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