Amanda Borozinski
Horses are better than rocking chairs. They glide, and dance, and move in ways that echo in my soul.
This afternoon, I was riding Summer. She is a delicate palomino. To me she looks feline, refined nostrils and tiny hooves. After about an hour on the trail we came to a very rocky patch leading to a covered bridge. The wind was roaring all around us. Summer was scared. I could feel her shaking, her ears swiveled, her body a rocket ready to blast off.
Instead of getting down to lead her, or forcing her to move forward, I felt moved to just wait.
You see, here was this prey animal–every instinct telling her to flee–and yet she was willing to trust me enough to at least wait and see.
And so we waited.
We listened for danger. We looked in all directions. We maintained our readiness to run.
After about 20 minutes, I felt her body relax. Calmly I asked her to walk on.
She went straight through that terrifying covered bridge.
I was so proud of her. I laughed out loud. A bubble of joy just rose from within me.
I wasn’t disappointed that she was scared. I was filled with joy that she trusted.
And I could only think, maybe that’s how God feels when we are scared and every instinct cries–run, hide, flee, isolate, figure it out on your own, turn around. Maybe that’s how God feels when instead we stop and we wait. We stop and we trust. We trust in things unseen, and in promises yet to be…
I bet God laughs with joy.
Amanda Borozinski was a reporter and photographer for The Keene Sentinel for six years. She has her MFA in creative non-fiction from Antioch University. Her works have appeared in Toasted Cheese, The Oklahoma Review, Guideposts Magazine and more. She teaches writing at Keene State College and Franklin Pierce University, and runs Boro: Creative Visions an event and wedding photography company. Through the lens or on paper, Amanda’s passion is storytelling.
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