God gives and He takes away. Not because He is trying to hurt us but because sometimes we don’t know when it is time to remove things from our lives and we need Him to help us.

And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

Job 1:21

I’ve learned over the course of my life that we need to be careful what we pray for. It’s sounds like a cliche, “Be careful what you pray for because you just might get it!” But it’s true, well half way.

God gives good things, and He will give the desires of our hearts if our hearts are aligned with Him. But sometimes we get more than we bargained for if we weren’t ready to receive His gifts.

Nothing good is easy.

When you look back on your life at the good things you had, the things you prayed for or wanted, you likely had to work for them in some way or another. Or once you had them, there was work to maintain them.

Learning a new skill, saving enough money for something, waiting until the right time to do or go somewhere.

God’s hand and timing is different from our own and if we haven’t been keeping God in the loop throughout the process we can get off track pretty quick.

God Gives and He Takes Away

I wanted a horse for as long as I can remember. It was basically my identity growing up. I had the typical horse room with posters plastered on my walls, horse models, blankets and so on. Saturday morning was my favourite time of the week because that was my riding lesson.

Horses are expensive though. They eat money as some people say. So I looked into going to college for equine studies. I wanted to do it so badly. Everyone advised me not to. They said horses were a hobby, not a job.

So I reluctantly went into teaching. Because teaching could pay for a hobby.

Around the time I was deciding this, I started going to a Christian Ranch in the summer. It quickly became my new favourite place and I started volunteering there in the summer.

The volunteer became a paid position and for 10 years I worked there, teaching kids to ride, leading trail rides and doing the thing I had so desperately wanted since I was a little girl.

My “hobby” was paying for my teaching degree and when I graduated, I still had that hobby to go back to every weekend.

The day came when I decided to buy a horse of my own. I scoured the internet looking for appropriate horses in my area. Went to try a few options and settled on a Halflinger gelding.

Good Things Aren’t Easy

I distinctly remember God saying having a horse would be good but it wouldn’t be easy. And like a typical young naive person I thought “That’s fine, I can handle it!”

My horse, mAJor (his name was AJ, and I wanted to honour that so renamed him “mAJor”) became a constant in my life during some turbulent times. Job insecurity, short term potion in Manitoba and then finally a full time position, again back in Manitoba.

Then he joined me in Manitoba, living on the property where I was billeting. My horse, in the backyard, literally my dream.

It was hard but it was good. Manitoba winters are cold and dark, and they had ticks, which we had never experienced. I learned so much.

My horse was there when I met my now husband, when we got engaged and then married. We moved again to Northern Saskatchewan and I started to understand what God meant when He said things wouldn’t be easy.

mAJor couldn’t follow me north, it wasn’t hospitable to horses so he stayed with a friend. I didn’t see him as often, but he was there when I got pregnant, he was there after my son was born.

And then when we made the hard decision to move back to Ontario, he eventually followed, just as I got pregnant with my second.

My oldest got to ride him a few times and he became a barn favourite for kids at the Ranch.

I wasn’t able to see him very often, life with two kids is busy.

When God Gently Removes What You Can’t

I remember the day mAJor got sick. My oldest had accidentally hit his brother in the face, narrowly missing his eye. I had felt such relief that God had been watching over him, protecting him.

I had to hand my horse over to God too. I was unable to go and help and felt torn between motherhood and being a horse woman.

I thought things would be okay, but the next morning I got the call that he hadn’t made it through the night.

If you know horses, you’ll know what colic is. You’ll know that sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t. Everything that could be done (aside from a crazy expensive trip to Guelph University) was done, and I knew it was God’s ways of saying…sometimes good things have to go so you can focus on other things.

The grief came in waves. I grieved the past I had spent with my porky pony, but also the future I had planned for us and my children. But I also felt a weight lifted from my shoulders.

I didn’t feel the constant tug to try and find a way to get up to the barn with two kids. I was at the beginning of what would become a long journey in chronic illness along with raising two kids with a husband who has a stressful job.

God took what I could no longer carry. He gave mAJor to me at a time when I needed him and He took him when he was no longer part of my story. God gives and He takes away.

God’s Comfort

God’s comfort was with me through every moment. The joyful ones and the hard ones. I felt His presence and in many ways, drew closer to God through the grief after my pony passed.

I often would catch myself thinking “he was just a horse, why are you so upset!” But reminded myself I wasn’t just grieving the loss of an animal, I was grieving the loss of memories, a future and a piece of my heart.

God knows. He understands and I have come to trust His plans. So I let myself feel the grief, feel God’s comfort and then step forward.

“The Plans I Have For You”

God doesn’t promise an easy road, but He does promise good things. The plans He has may not be clear in the moment, in fact sometimes we never fully understand His purposes but we can trust His goodness.

In those uncertain moments we can take comfort in knowing that God gives and He takes away, and we should praise Him for it.

We can’t lose sight of His greater purpose in our lives. Each situation we face is another test of faith.

When God gives, it is good and when He takes away it is good, so praise Him through all of it!

For more on my pony and our experience together read “My Friend mAJor.”

For more on how to pray when it feels like God isn’t listening read “When Prayer Feels Empty.“

For more on the beauty of God’s plan, get my devotional “Consider the Wildflowers,” available on Amazon.