Hope Rising Read Online Free PDF

become His gift to me.
    To reassure the reader, the telling of this story will not jeopardize the safety of Diane and her daughters. Diane’s former husband recently died in a traffic accident
.

Vitamin M

 
    A LTHOUGH HER name is Hailee Brite, I always think of her as Bright Hailee. Her little horseshoe-shaped grin radiates all the good cheer any heart could hope for. If sunshine could skip, it would look like Hailee. Her dark blond hair bounces behind her in golden shafts as she scans the ranch for her favorite horse. After reaching up to hug me hard, she dances off in her trademark cow-patch pants and old farmer’s hat.
    But before she leaves me, Hailee carries out her sweet and timeless ritual, as reliable and heartwarming as the rising sun. She bows deeply, tipping off her well-worn hat in a cascade of giggles, and presents me with the gift she has hidden inside.
    Now, Hailee knows how much I enjoy cards and flowers and drawings. But she ignores all that and goes straight for what I
really
need. With all the mock drama of a court jester, she invariably produces from her hat a one-pound bag of vitamin “M.”
    With hearing set more finely than a tuning fork, my perceptive staff detect the delicate crinkle of plastic and converge on us at that exact moment, with all the subtlety of a tidal wave. The feeding frenzy begins—and is over inthe speed of a sneeze. I’m left standing with nothing but an empty plastic bag in my hands.
    Over the dispersing crowd, I smile at Hailee. She shrugs her little shoulders in a “better luck next time” gesture. I wink back at her and glance down at my mangled bag. And each time it happens I console myself by thinking, “What kind of a leader would I be … if I didn’t share my M&M’s?”

Chosen One

 
    O NE LOOK AT Maci would make anyone swallow hard. It was the first time that I had seen my little nine-year-old elfin since her traumatic accident. One hundred and twenty-eight stitches were needed to close what could have been fatal wounds to her face and head. Her tiny skull had been fractured with such crushing force that her parietal plate was actually displaced backward.
    Now, two weeks later on this snowy January day, Maci stood in my kitchen, her bright blue eyes seemingly unaware of the savage wounds that surrounded them. She looked up at me and smiled as her tiny hands lifted up what had become a present beyond value—her riding helmet.
    My whole body shivered as she carefully but triumphantly placed her completely destroyed helmet into my trembling hands. It had saved her life, this helmet. It had done its job, dispersing the impact of her fall, and now this child stood before me, alive, to give me this most precious gift. In my mind I prayed,
Thank you, Jesus, for enforcing within my heart to always protect my lambs, young and old, with riding helmets
.
    Two weeks earlier, Maci and her mother had made an appointment twenty-five miles away to see a horse theywere considering buying. I was out of town and the rest of our ranch leadership was unavailable, so the mother and daughter team had set out alone to test ride the horse.
    Once the horse was groomed and tacked up, Maci amazed all the adults present by gently refusing to mount—because she didn’t have a riding helmet. “At ‘my’ ranch,” she said, “we are taught that the saddle goes on the horse and the helmet goes on the child. We have learned to never, ever put our foot in the stirrup without using our heads to protect our heads. I’m sorry, but I know I shouldn’t ride this horse without wearing a helmet.”
    Maci’s mother told me later how proud she was of her daughter’s shy respect as she insisted on what she had been taught at Crystal Peaks. The horse’s owner was able to produce a riding helmet from her garage and so, after some minor adjustments, the helmet was set firmly in place and Maci was helped into the saddle.
    For nearly an hour, horse and child rode together with the perfect