The plow ripped deep, tearing to the heart of the soil, creating the impassable. I ride the edge of this destruction, my horse with her nose to the ground, nostrils wide. She senses the danger of land turned inside out. She is an animal of legs. To run is her protection. And her peace. Instinctively, my mare avoids the four-feet deep crevices, the waves of clods rolling into sunset. This is not the normal plow. Deep ripping has happened here. And my delicate mare is not built for this. She knows it and I know it.

Most of the day my little mare waits in the protection of her corral. With the baby on my hip, I feed her peaches. Apples. Hay. The ride must wait until the daddy comes home.

After handing off baby and the boys to Daddy, I throw on my boots and lug her saddle to the arena. She approaches me as eagerly as I approach her.

Outside the gate, we hit the trail that skirts the furiously plowed land. The way is narrow. Ribboned between the furrowed field and a steep ravine. The ride is the same every day. Change is coming, but will take time. The field is in transition. Soon to be smoothed out, scraped clean, and planted in walnuts come winter. Ten years from now, the orchard will be a beautiful ride for the mare. Even next spring will be nice. But today the land is impossible for her.

Kept on the trail, my mare is safe. She trusts me to guide her, and though sometimes she looks longingly at the far horizon, she understands we won’t go there. Not now. Not with the churned up field so opposed to the kind of creature she is.

Just as I know my mare, the Master knows me. The Master is also the Farmer who has plowed the fields up to the edges of my life. I am left with a narrow path. A corral of protection.

I pray for patience. For peace. For the grace to embrace the Lord’s gentle way for me. Others will forge hard steps through the plowing. They are not the mare. God has different plans for them. Some of these will even smooth the ravaged field, break up the clods, fill in the crevices. Heal the land and plant the new crop.

And when the land is cultivated once more, the mare can run there. Until then, the mare with the delicate legs waits.

She and I wait.