Hope Rising Read Online Free PDF Page B

rhythm of a well-written poem. All too soon, though, it was time to go. Maci’s mother called to her, “You look so beautiful together, honey. Why don’t you canter toward us one more time?”
    On their last pass the chestnut gelding was moving with fluid grace when unexpectedly he flew into a blind panic and galloped out of control. The young mother and owner waved their arms frantically, trying to make a human barricade as he thundered toward them. Using all of her strength and competence, Maci was still unable to stop the terrified horse. Neither could the adults. They were forced to dive out of the way to avoid being trampled under his flailing hooves.
    The gelding careened past them at horrifying speed.The mother and owner quickly regained their feet, only to watch helplessly as Maci and the horse disappeared from view.
    Maci knew that a major crossroad with heavy traffic was fast approaching. The bloody images from the recently seen film
The Horse Whisperer
filled her mind. She knew what she must do. With the resolve of a soldier, the nine-year-old child purposefully dropped her stirrups in preparation for an emergency dismount.
    No one really knows what happened next. Maci remembered a car coming out of nowhere and the horse launching himself violently to one side. Maci hit the pavement headfirst, became tangled in the horse’s legs, and somehow ended up off the paved road in a ditch.
    Maci’s mother ran with an adrenaline-induced panic in the direction her daughter had vanished. Her recollections of those moments still flood her eyes with tears. “I looked up to see my daughter running toward me. Her scalp was hanging down in huge flaps, with blood completely covering her face and chest. As she ran, chunks of the helmet fell away. I thought it was pieces of her skull. Kim, I thought that she would run into my arms … and die.”
    Now, two weeks later, tears blurred my own vision as I looked down at the gift I now held. The mangled helmet was shattered beyond recognition. The Styrofoam meant to protect the front of the head was completely broken away. I could easily see the impact of where Maci’s small head had recoiled and smashed out the back of the helmet. Some of the pieces were deeply embedded with rocks and cinders and smeared with blood. Trying to visualize the sheer force it would take to create this kind of damage,while cradling a child’s head, made me want to vomit. I thanked the Lord again for the precious gift of the child who stood before me.
    Sadly, though, I understood that physical trauma was not all that Maci had suffered. She had not only fractured her face and skull; her confidence and courage were severely damaged as well. In place of the barrel-racing fiend that I once knew, my little elfin was now afraid even to touch a rope that was connected to a horse.
    Standing in my kitchen, I gently placed the shattered remains of her helmet aside and looked down past her jagged healing wounds to see her smile. “I have someone I would like you to meet,” I said.
    A week earlier we’d had a call from the distraught owners of two draft horses that had been shipped to a “very respected trainer” to be started under saddle. Five months later, on a cold January day, the horses—one six years old, the other two—had finally been returned to their new owners.
    Joyful anticipation quickly vanished. The owners watched in disbelief as their once gentle giants backed out of the trailer into the newly fallen snow. What stood quaking before them now were two giant, young horses that had been beaten so badly that they could scarcely be touched.
    And so the call came to us. “If you can fix them, you can have them.”
    “How could this happen?” I muttered under my breath as I went to look at the horses for the first time. I quietly entered their round pen and carefully approached Boonie, the older and larger of the two. I could see panic rising in his eyes as I gently stretched out the back of