Fatherless

In October my family went camping at Fall Creek Falls State Park in Tennessee. One day we visited a stable and rode horses. We weren’t the only customers that day. There were a total seven of us ready to ride. One by one the owners paired each rider with a horse they believed best suited that rider. But they weren’t quite ready for a crowd of seven, because they didn’t have enough horses saddled. We had to wait for them to saddle one more. His name was Jim. And Jim was given to me.

“Jim’s 25 years old,” the guide said as she helped me get in the saddle.

“Oh,” I said. “Is that old?”

“Well,” she said, “most horses die by the they time they are 25. In fact, we had planned on retiring old Jim. He doesn’t like anyone riding him.”

I’m not sure what bothered me more–the fact that I was riding a horse that didn’t want to be ridden and might die at any moment, or the fact the stable owners saw something in me that convinced them I was exactly the kind of person best suited to ride a nearly-dead cantankerous horse.Read More »The Praise of Orphans (Ps. 146) Chris Altrock – 11/1/15