Cowboy Church

Mustard Seed

One July morning Kaylin and I climb up in to the bleachers and sit ourselves comfortably in the morning sun.  My black bejeweled sunglasses giving everything a bluish hue, I looked around at all my blessings.  There in front of me a rodeo arena, flanked by a hillside of temporary hay bale seating.  The top edge of the hillside is covered in beautifully leaved trees of various types.  Just a few days ago we had been trail riding in the shade of those trees.

The pretty lady we saw earlier comfortably picks up the guitar and strums, her voice is angelic.  Pleasing music floats up to our ears. Alluring lyrics pull me into complete concentration mode.  I become hypnotized by her melody and soon the words have me in tears.  I hear God speaking to me.  Directly to me he says that I have been successful, even if not by the world’s definition.  I must have needed to hear that because my tears just flowed, it was as if my heart was opened up and love and understanding were stuffed inside of me. I sat there hunched over, sobbing.  You know those racking kinds of sobs where your body just involuntarily kind of hiccups?  Yep, that’s what I did on that sunny day sitting on the splintered, peeling wood bleachers. I couldn’t make any sense of it.  But where those tears led me would make sense months later.

After the amazing service sitting outside amongst our heavenly blessings I tell the pretty lady that she has moved me with her song and asked what hymn she was singing. I told her that I’ve been frustrated by my lack of concentration, my inability to ride my horse straight and excused my slow, sloppy barrel run the night before.  Kaylin said, “My mom does feel successful, not because she wins like the world expects, but because she is camping with her family, riding her horse and participating in a rodeo.”

The angelic singer explains that she is the lyricist, there was no hymn. She tells us that she understands our connection to her lyrics about success. She then changes the subject and preaches that all it takes is the faith of a mustard seed to get through our world’s challenges. She mentions that she has had tribulations and with the tiniest bit of faith she was able to move mountains.  I didn’t completely understand what she was saying to me until later.  The songstress gave me a copy of her lyrics and the words mustard seed were there. Shortly thereafter I understood; when one of Joe's cousins gave me a necklace with a mustard seed inside a glass bauble, it came with the scripture:

 Matthew 17:21 I say to you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

So I put my big girl boots on and went about my horse training, barrel racing and teaching as though nothing were wrong.  My faith was the size of a mustard seed, so - my trials would not change, but my Lord would give me the skill set to deal with them.  I'm certain of it and I will move this mountain of  annoying symptoms from my life!