Bridge Called Hope (2 page)

For two years the Meeders spread moldy hay, used stall shavings, and manure over the rocky floor of the mine to help create a nutritive base that would once again support life. Troy brought home broken and discarded trees, and in 1995, Kim brought home the first two broken and discarded horses. One of them was missing nearly one-third of her normal body weight,
while the other had been beaten so badly a vet was needed to suture her beautiful face.

Like shattered shards of stained glass refitted by the hand of God, this broken property … filled with broken trees and broken horses … quietly became the perfect fit to heal the hearts of broken children.

Since its beginning, the ranch has been involved in the rescue of approximately three hundred horses. Today, Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch serves about four thousand visitors a year and is a permanent home for thirty horses. The effectiveness of its impact on kids has been nationally recognized and is being emulated throughout the United States and Canada through Information Clinics held each year at the ranch.

H
ope is an amazing thing.

It is not only something to aspire to attain, it is also something to aspire to give. Hope becomes a two-edged sword within us. Like a pendulum, it cuts in equal swaths in both directions. One swing cuts a path toward freedom and release, the other toward fulfillment, gratitude, and joy. Either way …

To the weak, wounded, and crushed in spirit, hope becomes a distant light in the darkness. It is a flicker of radiance that stands in sharp contrast against the blackness of grief, sorrow, and despair. No matter how small its light may appear … there is
no
pain so great that it can stop the light of hope.
No
pain, regardless of how catastrophic and charred it may be … can silence the voice of hope … because …

Hope’s voice calls us through our blackened cavernous places toward its unfathomable brilliance. Initially, hope may appear to balance on the horizon like a diamond, calling with a still, small voice … a voice that knows no silence. When we heed …

Of the giants that live within our soul, one of the most powerful is our ability to
choose
. Throughout our life, choices will rise like bridges, presenting themselves in every known direction. Yet, as bright or black as they may appear … 
no one
crosses them for us … we cross alone … propelled by our own will, knowing that …

The moment we say yes to hope’s voice … and choose with a willing heart to cross its rising bridge beneath us … the diamond once balanced on our horizon bursts forward. Light, truth, and release pour like a sunrise over every crack and crevice of our brokenness. It drenches every shadowed place within us in golden, healing sovereignty.

Like a cleansing fire, hope roils through our dungeons, consuming every chain, bond, and barrier … leaving in its wake … only freedom. This new liberty is not found in filling our blank spaces with answers … but choosing to allow our blank spaces to be filled with peace as truth approaches … because …

Every closet, cupboard, and cranny … all lay bare before hope’s cleansing brilliance. Its heat within our heart expands, stretching our thoughts, ideas, dreams, and beliefs beyond any boundary previously known.

Hope makes us bigger.

In every honest, balanced, and meaningful way … hope stretches us to a new capacity … a previously unknown capacity to change …

M
ike looked at me with a completely emotionless expression. I held his gaze. It was not unlike watching ice melt in the sun. The thin ice of his emotional barricade was breaking up beneath him. Clearly, his defenses were beginning to collapse.

Finally, his eyes broke away from mine as all that remained of the “stronghold” beneath him completely shattered.

After taking a deep breath, his gaze wandered to the side. It was clear he was struggling with what he was about to say. Without raising his eyes to look at me, in a voice barely clearing the horizon of a whisper, he said, “I know that you don’t love me. You just say that ‘cuz you’re an adult and it’s kinda like your job. But I know you don’t
really
love me …” Looking down at nothing, he absently ran his fingers through his dark hair before continuing. “No one loves me … because I can’t be loved. I don’t … 
deserve
to be loved.”

I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. No air coming in, no air going out. His pain was so crushing that even from an arm’s length away, I could hardly breathe. Suddenly, shoveling rock in the back paddock of the ranch felt heavier than either one of us could bear.

Girl, get a grip
, I told myself, as I struggled to regain my
balance. Mike had risked a great deal to reveal how he felt. He would do that only if he truly wished for me to prove him wrong.
Straighten up, girl! If he wants proof … give it to him
!

All I really knew about Mike was that he came occasionally on Monday with a group from a local juvenile justice facility. Like the other boys in the program, he had earned the right to come to the ranch and volunteer. As with the others, he understood that the ranch was a privilege, one that he treated with respect. In general, he was a quiet kid of approximately sixteen years of age. He appeared to be going through that gawky stage, where his feet and hands were too big for his rapidly growing slender body. His bangs were nearly the length of his nose and he had a subconscious habit of pushing his hair back behind his ears when he needed to focus. Although his brown eyes were murky with caution, he was otherwise polite and engaging.

I could only guess at what might have happened in his life that drove him to this place of ultimate despair. What was said—or worse, done to him—that would make him believe he could not be loved because he didn’t deserve it? It was certainly a haunted place that, at the moment, I didn’t have time to explore.

Fueled by my lack of wisdom, a quick prayer rose from my heart like a blazing flare:
Lord! I need help … now!
Thankfully, God must be used to my Hail Marys, because what followed in the next hours transformed into something reflecting far greater wisdom than I will ever possess.

Now it was my turn to take a deep breath … and reveal
God’s
truth.

“Mike … you’re both right … and wrong,” I began, while scooping up another shovelful of rocks and tossing them into the bed of the ranch’s ATV. “You’re right in saying that what
comes out of a person’s mouth might or might not be true. But you’re wrong about your idea that you cannot be loved.”

When the bed was running over with cinder, we backed it up to a very precarious ledge halfway up the pit wall, and together dumped the load of rock over the edge to help shore up the road. “You are right in believing that what comes out of a person’s mouth can mean anything. But you have to admit that it is what comes out of our
life
that is really true. Mike, our words mean little; it is our actions that prove what is true. Do you agree?” I asked.

His silent response was a slight downturn of his mouth combined with a half-hearted shrug.

“Do you agree, Mike, that it is our actions … not our words … that reveal what is truly inside our hearts?” I prompted again.

“Maybe,” he finally conceded.

“Good, because I have something that I want to show you,” I said, as I motioned for him to follow me.

Together we entered the main corral and haltered a very large, paint horse named Hanson. I chose this young horse because of his remarkably calm and fun-loving nature. After leading him out to one of the hitching posts, side by side, Mike and I groomed his chestnut and white patched coat. While combing out his mane and tail and cleaning his hooves, I asked Mike many questions, one being that if he could choose, how would he wish for this horse to feel about him.

“He’s big! Dude, I wouldn’t want him to be mad at me!” he quipped. Then, after a moment, he thoughtfully added, “I would want him to be my friend …”

“Do you think that he wants you to be his friend?” I asked while glancing sideways at him.

A slight but noticeable “tightness” appeared between his
dark eyebrows. I continued to watch as he silently contemplated this concept.

“Okay … are you ready?” I asked, as we led Hanson into the round pen. His expression revealed that he understood that I wasn’t really “asking.” “Together we are going to round-pen this horse. Since you have never done this before, you have to trust me to ‘puppet’ you from behind. Okay?”

His look was intent; he was with me.

While standing in the center of the round pen, Mike took in his new surroundings. I watched him turn in a complete circle, as if to confirm that the pen wherein he stood was in fact, round. In every direction rose a solid eight-foot high wall. Answering his question before he asked it, I explained, “The walls are solid to help the horse concentrate on the trainer, and are also a bit safer for his legs as he travels in a circle around us.” Mike’s gaze was focused on Hanson as he absently nodded in response to this new piece of information.

“You will need to relax and just let me push you from behind. Hey, you should be used to life pushing you around by now!” I laughed as I reached down in the sand to pick up a lunging crop. “We are going to use this crop as an extension of our arm to help communicate with Hanson what we would like him to do. We do not ever use these to whip horses with. Got it?” I asked, as I placed the crop in his right hand and stepped behind him.

Using a round pen to train horses has taught me so much about my own life. Here at the ranch, we use “resistance free” training methods. This means that the horse is free to leave the trainer whenever it wishes. No ropes, leads, or lunge lines are used to connect the horse to the trainer within the circle of the round pen. Because horses are so incredibly sensitive to physical
pressure, it is a wonderful way to communicate with them. Although far more complicated, the basic principle boils down to complete simplicity, including which direction you step.

For example, if you step toward a horse, you are pushing them away. If you step away from a horse, you are inviting them into your space. If the horse does not understand you, is stressed, willful, afraid, or playful, it can leave the center of the circle any time it wishes and walk, trot, or canter away in circles around the pen walls.

The down side of leaving the trainer is that the horse must work more. Walking, trotting, or cantering in circles might feel like freedom at first, but once the newness wears off, it just boils down to pure effort that isn’t much fun.

Even for a horse, it becomes immediately clear how easy it is to do the right thing and how much more difficult, how much more work it is to do the wrong thing. When the horse is ready to try again, it is free to return to the trainer, because it is here, in the center of the circle, where all the rest, love, peace, joy, and forgiveness are.

Rarely has there been a time in my life that I have worked horses in the round pen when I have not thought how remarkably similar this must be with God’s heart and mine. He never stops me from bolting away and running in circles, all the while trying to do things in my own strength. Eventually I become exhausted and realize that
my plan
just isn’t working. It is then that I turn back toward the center of the circle and head back to the space that waits for me … right next to God. Because it is here … by His side … where all the rest, love, peace, joy, and forgiveness are.