You are not what happened to you

I've been thinking a lot about the well-known cowboy proverb  to

'get right back on the horse that bucked you off.' 

Since growing up on a ranch and coming from a rodeo family this saying had only a literal meaning to me when I was younger. I was gently forced at times against my will to get back on the horse that I got knocked off of, not tomorrow, not next week, but as soon as my wind was back inside me for a for a few minutes. It taught the horse and myself to basically work together and get better.

I do realize the much deeper side to it now of course, and am so fond of the deeper meaning that I thought I'd do a little post on it ;) 

You are not what happened to you.

We have to get back on the horse that bucked us off because if we don't we're basically saying to others, and more importantly to ourselves: I'm the one that got bucked off that horse. You are defining yourself by a moment in time, a moment of failure, hurt, embarrassment, or fear. Thus you put a mark on yourself that this is now who you are. A moment, a hard moment in which you chose not to recover from is what you have chosen to label yourself with. You claim 'defeated' to be your title as you sharpie it onto your name tag; A refusal to get back on.

There have of course, as there is with every human who ever walked this journey, been many many instances where I have been knocked down. Through chance or due to my own faulted choices, these occurrences still happen ... but I know they are a necessity to conquer, to continue, to get better. I purposely put myself back in those type of situations because I deeply and truly do not want that to be  my badge, my signification, because I know that it is not me. I am NOT my weaknesses and I am NOT what happened to me.

One example of this in my life is social anxiety. I started having it in junior high and it still haunts me on occasion. But despite making up excuses to dart off to the bathroom stall or do cruises solo around town to calm my nerves, I ALWAYS came back; back to the house party, back to the classroom. It may have taken a while to get my breathing back to normal, and tears dried out of my eyes, but dangit I came back. I HAD to come back. This was not me; it is not me. It's something that effects me, but I do not claim this for mine, and it will never be an excuse not to go out or be around people. I deal with its after effects, but for me that cannot have petition over the reasoning to quit trying or to completely avoid.

You are not what happened to you.

 We tend to focus and to fixate, to hold that grudge, to keep that sharp chip on our shoulder, that knife in our backs. It is our precious, our weakness, our excuse. The justifiable, understandable excuse to not be good enough, smart enough, courageous enough, or strong enough. But do we know that this hand-held self-proclaimed excuse is only giving way to our true dark destructive thought? The thought that says: "I am NOT enough."

But you are, we all are. It's an outright lie to ourselves that we're making when we decide to never get back on the horse that bucked us off - that we are now no longer enough because of this past circumstance. To our Saviour we will always be worth it; His sacrifice wasn't made for you based on your faults; it was based on your worth. To be saved is more than just a need because you're human, it was a requirement because you're LOVED.

We get right back on the horse that bucked us off because we're fighters; we are strong and we are brave. We know that we are not our physical limits, our mental illness, our tragic experience, our sins, or our failures. We are beings with potential beyond restraint.


(PS - how cute are all these photos of our daughter with horses?!)



Heaven's slice is knowing you are not what happens to you.