Tag: Children’s Book

Never give up!

If you have read my book – Scruffy Finds His Way and read my first blog, you will discover a curious omission…that it appears in the book that we only have a small family that consists of Mama, Papa and Billyboy! In reality, our family consists of five people…Mama, Papa, Randi-Lynn, Joan and Bill…or Billyboy! So the question arises…why didn’t I include my two oldest children in the story?? Was there some deep, dark secret about them that I wanted to keep hidden…away from public view or “gasp” was I ashamed of them?? The quick answer is, “No”.

In Goat Tails I am telling the story of the Family Farm from the perspective of the Goats and right from the very beginning the family member that best loved the goats – especially the kids was our youngest child…Bill! Hence he has been featured in the first book, “Scruffy finds his way” and in the second book…soon to be released, “SuperScruff!”

But while Bill was primarily interested in the goats…he was not the only one to have adventures on our farm. Our oldest daughter, Randi-Lynn’s passion was horses! She spent every minute she could with the horses…riding, training and grooming. You could often find her at the barn…sometimes with an equally enthusiastic friend, gaily chattering while brushing and saddling her horse for another training session. She was serious about her riding and regularly went out for solo rides in the country to work off a few rough edges on her mount.

One day she headed off on such a ride on her favourite mount of the time…Angel! Now that horse was as misnamed as any horse I have ever heard of. To me…she was a cantankerous old lady whose sole pleasure in life was dumping you onto the ground! But to Randi-Lynn she was a queen who just needed a little work…?? Well off she went across the field to practice jumping over obstacles that Rand had strategically placed along the trails, then farther along to Clover Valley, where they would enjoy a brisk gallop. We watched her go…no worries…they had done this dozens of times.

It wasn’t until we spied Angel galloping up the field towards the barn, saddle slapping against her flanks…minus the rider that we got a little concerned! We ran to the driveway to head her off and managed to direct this angelic horse back into the barn. We had just decided who was going to ride out to look for our daughter when we saw a small person stomping angrily home (you could tell just how angry she was, even at a distance ). Fifteen minutes later she arrived, with a black look on her determined face. Stomping straight by us without saying anything she marched to the barn. Two minutes later she was back on a snorting Angel galloping across the field. We pondered…who had learned the biggest lesson…Randi-Lynn or Angel?

Over the years there were many similar sort of events that occurred with that horse…yet despite the frustrations, Randi-Lynn continued to love her…never gave up on her…used every opportunity to further her training…just like God does for us!

He uses events…both good and bad to build our character, to rub off some of our rough edges. We balk, we fight Him, we stubbornly refuse to learn…but He never gives up…now that’s love! See Romans 5:3-5

Now, I’ve happily shared one of Randi-Lynn’s moments…I have also shared some of my own misadventures- check out “Finding His Way” and “Stuck on the Rocks, again” – real stories about our Faithful…never-give-up God rubbing off some of my rough edges!