As a parent I often ask my children to do things and expect them to be obedient – make your bed, put your dishes in the sink, hang up your jacket. But, how often are we obedient when we hear God asking us to do something? Here is my story of a series of recent events that were very clearly God telling me to do something – my reaction and the ultimate ending.

It’s a late afternoon on a Saturday in June when I get a text that the mare, who we shipped semen too, had not caught and was in fact coming back in heat. (For those of you who aren’t versed in the science of equine reproduction – you can generally measure the size a of a mares follicle and determine roughly when she will release the follicle and ovulate.) Based on the mail system, the earliest I could get semen shipped out would be Tuesday, which meant a trip to our reproductive vet on Monday. There is only one problem…the reproductive vet we have been using to train Spooky is in the US. That meant we needed papers from our vet and those papers need to be signed by our local CFIA office and now it was Saturday night.

Let me clear that the number of steps required for this to be successful were many, but it just so happened that our beautiful and amazing vet, Kendra was going to be at our farm on Sunday of that week to check one of our mares AND it just so happened that she had papers in her truck AND I had kept his last set of papers from May, so we could re-use his Coggins. The next step would be to see if we could get an appointment on Monday at a reasonable time to collect him. Again, our amazing repro vet, Amanda obliged and fit us into her already very tight schedule. We only had one more hurdle to jump. Fast forward to Monday morning.

Our final mare to foal had been bagged up and dripping milk on Sunday afternoon, but she did not oblige us by foaling out on Sunday night. Early Monday morning as I was doing stalls I could clearly see that she was in labour – pawing and nesting. My only hope was that the mare we were going to breed had already ovulated and I wouldn’t need to leave the farm…Nope!

At 7:30 am I received confirmation that she was still holding onto that follicle and we were a go. The only obstacle now was could CFIA get us in to sign our papers – they don’t always have a vet in first thing in the morning. We were able to get an appointment at 9:00! I was back home, Spooky was loaded and we were on the road by 10:15. Throughout this entire process I desperately hoped for road blocks so that I wouldn’t have to leave my mare who I knew was going to foal that day. And this is where I want to talk about obedience because God cleared away every single obstacle and road block. At that point I had to decide if I was going to trust in him and do what he so very clearly wanted me to do, or if I was going to cancel and go my own way. And let me tell you, I wasn’t shy about telling God that I didn’t want to do this, but I also clearly understood that it was what He wanted.

Faith is about stepping off the ledge into the unknown. It’s about trusting that even when you can’t see the path ahead of you God can. It’s about doing what is asked of you, even when you don’t always understand why. Over the course of that day there was stress and at times there was cursing and yelling at God as I sat in construction at 5:40 convinced I was never going to make it to Fedex on time and that all of this had been for naught. But I did., I made it to Fedex that day with 10 minutes to spare before they closed shipping. The next morning I received news that the mare had ovulated! Seriously!!!! Had I gone through all of that stress for nothing?!!! Fortunately, you still have 12-16 hours post ovulation. The mare owner called Fedex and was able to get her shipment by 11:30 that morning.

Our mare did foal out that day/night and gave us a beautiful colt that we were privileged to witness. Yesterday I found out that the mare we had shipped to was pregnant and this pregnancy was truly a very special gift of joy. Her owner had lost two horses – a foal and her gelding of 24 years in the days just prior.

It is not given to us to know God’s plans – but that day, when he put it on my heart that I had to do this trip – that regardless of my fears and resistance I had to trust and be obedient – he knew – he knew that a heart would be heavy and grieving and and he knew the joy that this would bring. Light in the darkness.

Learning to listen to God is a muscle that we need to exercise daily – to hear that voice in our heart that calls us to his work. What are the ways that God is calling you to obedience in your life, if you would only listen? What are the blessings he wants to share with others through you? I am always so touched to have the privilege of knowing that God has used me to do His will. I pray that same blessing for you.

God bless,

Meredith