What a blessing! Many of you who keep up with what’s going on know that Maggie has not had the easiest time adapting to life in Colombia. Mood swings, sildenafil days of crying and the occasional outburst had us searching for something to help calm her and help her through this transition. While on a field trip with Alex’s class a few months ago one of the girls was telling me how she rides horses. My ears perked up as she talked about how much she loved it, click knowing how horse-obsessed Maggie is. After talking to her parents I found out she, cialis too, had trouble from time to time dealing with living in Colombia, but this had really made a difference. They said she was most relaxed when she was riding.
So we thought we’d give it a try. Even in the little things I think the enemy tries to deter us from the things that can give us the most help. After tons of scheduling issues we thought we were on track. One benefit of living in Colombia is that some things are significantly cheaper than in the states and, Praise God, so is riding! However, just as we were finally getting the schedule cleared to put her in lessons we got hit with a few large bills we weren’t expecting…things like annual payments on bills we didn’t know about and car taxes. We thought it may be shot down once again. However, we had an unexpected blessing of income that allowed us to pay the unexpected bills, get Maggie started in riding and have extra (Praise Jesus!!!).
Needless to say, her anticipation and excitement was overwhelming by the time it came to her first class. It works out well that I pick her up from school and we have about an hour to hang out at the local mall and have some “girl time” before heading to the stables. She’s the only one in her class, which is excellent not only for the one-on-one attention, but it gives her and the instructor time to work out their communication differences. Maggie is suddenly thrilled to be speaking Spanish!
Her class went great. They had her turning around in the saddle, standing on it, laying backwards, getting halfway off and then back on…all kinds of things to get her really comfortable with the saddle so that no matter what may come she will have a sense of how to recover from it. She worked hard, got down the timing of the trot and at the end of class had the biggest smile on her face. I was exhausted just watching her, but she was full of energy.
On the way home I noticed that the “giddiness” of riding was wearing off, but the peace and contentment that shone in her face was a release of stress I cannot explain. She’s since had her second class, and I can just say, there is something stabilizing about her riding. She looks forward to the next week and her attitude has improved immensely in such a short time. I’ve seen confidence in her that has been hidden for a long time.
It truly is a blessing that everything worked out for her to begin riding classes. To see some video, please visit the kid’s blog at www.kautzkids.blogspot.com.
~Tona