About six months ago I began praying for a pony.

I grew up on ponies and have wanted my children to have this bittersweet experience too. I say bittersweet because I broke bones (usually the arms of other little girls with me), yet many of my fondest childhood memories involve riding ponies.

But when our girls were young, we did the pony thing. After our little daughters landed in the dirt numerous times and Lacy got kicked in the chest by her naughty pony, we sold the bratty beasts. After that, Scott vowed no more pint size horses. Quietly, I grieved this loss as we continued by trial and error to build our family out of our own growing-up experiences.

After the pony fiasco, we embraced sports: Scott’s childhood brickwork, and soccer soon ruled our life.

About the time we hit six kids with another on the way, like those bratty ponies, soccer had kicked us to the ground. Draining our finances and our family time, soccer was nearly a seven day a week commitment. I wanted to hang up a post office flyer: Thirteen-year-old son missing. Sun-streaked blond hair hanging in eyes. Search for boy on a soccer field.

We knew it was time to take a break from sports and circle the wagons at home. This is when I began longing for a pony again. Scott said absolutely not, reminding me of our pony disaster a decade ago. It appeared a pony was out of the question for our string of little boys. So I began to pray…

One night at our small group Bible study out of the blue somebody said it wasn’t right to pray for a pony. “I’m praying for a pony,” I admitted a bit sheepishly. We then had a lively discussion about what should and should not be prayed for. This friend who brought up praying for a pony said she didn’t feel like people should ask God for that sort of thing. God can not be bothered with pony longings.

“I believe God is our father and we can ask him for anything,” I argued. “Like a wise earthly dad, he won’t give us everything we want because that would spoil us, but he will give us gifts because he is the giver of all good things.”

A few weeks ago, a wonderful Christian family came to us offering our children their beloved pony. They knew nothing of my pony prayer. Their youngest child was graduating from high school and their family had outgrown the pony.

“We want him to go to a good home,” they said. “Would you like to have him?”

“More than you know,” I said with tears stinging my eyes. God was giving us a pony!

Adding serendipity to all this, our new pony Sunny is blind in one eye just like my favorite pony of all time, Lyric was blind in one eye.

Walking up to Sunny yesterday, I put my arm around his maney neck and gave him a hug. Sunny leaned into me like Lyric used to do and I found myself feeling that little-girl-pony-love all over again deep in my belly. Closing my eyes, I thanked my Dad in heaven for our gift pony.

The old saying goes: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. This means not to analyze a gift, just accept it for what it is…

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights…” James 1:17.