A few days ago, I had the pleasure of watching my daughter ride. Something ignited within my soul as she rounded the corner of the ring, the mane of the horse blowing in the wind, her body moving ever so slightly with the rhythm of the horse’s hooves. It isn’t that she makes it look so easy, although it is certainly impressive. It isn’t that she literally floats from one jump to the next with such expertise; yet to see her talent makes me smile. It is simply the joy in every stride, the manner in which she holds her reins, and the worlds away gaze which signifies she is lost in a better place.
I’ve known her love for horses since she was around seven. Hart has always loved animals far more than even I do. Her understanding of them is like nothing I’ve ever seen, and it is evident in the way they interact and respond to her. There is such beauty in watching the process.
I seldom remember, because she is so naturally mine, the day I walked into the orphanage in Kashira, Russia, a town halfway between Moscow and the Ukrainian border. When I close my eyes, I can still see the lifeless walls in which she called home. It is hard for me to imagine, but Hart had been born into poverty. A poverty that Americans do not know. A poverty that even our poorest of poor do not understand. She had no personal possessions. The orphanage director had found the best of garments to put her in the day we arrived – a faded and torn red dress and stockings. There were no diapers. No toys. The cribs were shared by two and three babies depending on their size. Her world consisted of simply “time.” Time that did not reflect a past or a future but dead, empty space, and loneliness.
The moment the nurse put her eleven-month-old body in my arms, I knew she was mine. In an instant I fell so helplessly in love that it hurt deep within me – an unexplained hurt that only a mother knows. And it had nothing to do with giving birth or growing a child within my body. It had only to do with love.
I stare in pure wonder at her as she charges forward, preparing her horse to jump. I can’t fathom where she would be if God had not chosen me to be her mom. At the age of two, Hart would have been moved to the older children’s orphanage where she would have lived until the age of fifteen. Would she have had the same smile or laughed with such hardiness that all around her are forced to join in? Would she love animals with such a joy? Would her eyes have been as blue and filled with compassion? Would she ride with such grace and boldness?
The answers to the above questions are simply “No.” Because she wouldn’t be Hart but a lost person in a world of people who do not know God. Why He reached down and plucked her from that life, I do not know. But how grateful I am that He did. When Hart was a toddler, she used to sing a familiar song but change the words. “The whole world in my hands. The whole world in my hands…” And in reality, her rendition was quite true. God gave her the world when the world had nothing to give to her.
For that, I am forever grateful to Him because I get to call her my sweet “Hart.”
