Pintos and White Horses

When I was a little girl, I only remember truly longing for three things:  a swingset, a bicycle, and a horse.  Although I had to wait patiently for them...I finally got the swingset and the bicycle, but I never owned a horse.

Before we moved to the city, Lou Miller, the little girl who lived up the road from us, had a pony and pony cart.  When she and her dad rode by our house, I think she flipped her hair in my direction as if to say, "look what I have, and you don't."  How "Nellie Olson-esque" of her!  Actually, she didn't know how much I wanted a horse...it was just the green-eyed monster in me.

Back then, my favorite TV show was Bonanza.  I would gallop about our yard, pretending to be Little Joe Cartwright on his pinto horse.  Sounds silly...but you must remember, I was only five or six years old.  Whenever I got my hands on a pencil, pen, or crayons, I was constantly drawing pictures of horses.  Not good pictures, mind you.  They were swaybacked, long-faced caricatures of horses...but my mother said they were good...and Mama never lied!  She loved them enough to keep a collection in her cedar chest.  Mamas are like that...yes, they are.

When we moved to the city after the second grade, I read every horse book in the Tryon Hills Elementary School library.  There was an entire section of Black Beauty, Black Stallion, Man 'O War, and Flicka books the librarian pointed out for me.  Mom and Dad bought me a book titled, "The Horseman's Bible."  I studied it "religiously", learning which side of the horse to mount, how to hold the reins, how to turn his head, how to make him stop and go.  The desire got stronger.  Oh, if only I could ride a horse...

Other than ponies at the amusement park or mechanical horses outside the grocery store, I never rode a real horse until we went on a trip to Cherokee, North Carolina when I was about ten or eleven.  We came across a stable offering trail rides.  Mama sat in the car...she wasn't too adventurous, but Daddy was.  He was a big man...not tall, just wide.  I remember him laughing and asking the trail guide for the biggest horse he had...one that could hold him.  I chose a pinto...just like Little Joe's.  I was too scared to look down from the drop offs along the trail.  But, it was a little girl's dream come true--to be sitting on the back of a real, live horse.

You know, God must love horses as much as I do.  The book of Revelation says that one day He's coming back on a white horse to conquer and destroy Satan and his minions once and forever.  The Bible says he'll be accompanied by the armies of heaven, those redeemed by the blood of Jesus...also riding white horses.  One day in heaven, I'll finally own a horse!  Maybe Jesus will let me have a pinto...just like Little Joe's.

Revelation 19:11-14:   "And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself.  He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.  And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses."


Copyright 2011 Charlotte Laney