There Will Be Horses in Heaven

My kids and I have a somewhat long ride to and from school in the morning. We get a little bit of scenery as we travel down some developing country roads. Most of the time my daughter looks for horses hidden in the pastures and yells, "Aaahhh! Horses!" when she sees them. My son chimes in and yells "Wee-wee!" right after her (from the word "horsie"). She is in LOVE with horses. She has asked me so many questions about her adult life that I wonder if it is actually normal! Recently, she has begun to build a dream about the house and horses she will have when she grows up.

Dream building in business can be very powerful. My husband and I were building a business for a while with other professionals from different walks of life. The people in the business became our mentors for free. Life coaches. Business coaches. Friends. Many of these professionals were multi-millionaires. It's not every day you get to be mentored by a multi-millionaire. We were blessed by the experience and the friendships we still have today. The first lesson we learned from our mentors was that if we wanted our business to be successful, we needed a very strong motivation--we needed a dream. So, dreaming became an important aspect of building our business. Our mentors would take us out to look at boats, houses, cars--whatever would get our juices flowing. We received training on how to focus in on our dreams, how to make them so strong that it was all we thought about and all we worked for. We called this practice "dream building".

So my daughter dream builds on the way home from school. "How do you buy a house, Mama? Do you go to a store? Do you get to see the inside before you buy it? How do you buy a horse? Is there a store for horses or something? I want all girl horses..." "You need to have land," I'd reply. "Land? Like a backyard?" "Yes," I'd reply. "A BIG backyard". "I'm going to have a paint horse, a brown horse, and a black horse like Flicka (her favorite movie)." She goes on and on tells me details of how she would like her house, her horses. She wants me to tell her all there is to know about owning horses (as if I knew!).

I can't remember what sparked the thought this one particular morning, but she asked me about heaven. She wanted to know if she would have purple blankets in heaven. "Sure!" I told her. "You can have anything you want for blankets. God knows all of your favorite things. The bible says He is preparing a place for you--that means He is making your room in heaven for you." "WHAT?!" She giggled and laughed at the thought. She did that girly little giggle I love so much--the one where she covers her mouth with her fist and her body doubles over from laughter. She got excited. "Can I have purple blankets with pink butterflies on it?" "Yes!", I responded. "Maybe your blanket could be a blanket of butterflies that would cover you and keep you warm as you sleep." "Oh my gosh!", she reacted. The thought was dreamy but too wild for her. "Maybe just purple and pink blankets. Can I have pink and purple walls?" "Of course," I responded. "What else would you like?" She dreamt some more. "Horses! I want horses on the walls." "Horses on the walls?", I asked. I'm good at dream building. I've had a lot of practice. It was time to give my daughter her first lesson. "Honey," I started, "God is SO big, that He could give you your own pasture of horses--any kind you want, You don't have to live in one room. You could have a gigantic mansion with a huge opening to a pasture where you could have your horses." She was ecstatic. "Really? I can have all that? I want horses! I want pink and purple! I can't wait to get to heaven! I want to go so badly! Jesus! I love you! I want to be in heaven with you! I love horses, Jesus! Give me lots of horses to ride EVERY DAY!" She was in full shout at this point. I couldn't stop her--not that I was even close to wanting to. I glanced in the rear view and I saw her little baby brother intently smiling and watching her joy--not fully comprehending--but celebrating it with her. Her little words of faith and praise rang in my ears--a sound sweeter than I can ever have imagined and I loved and simply breathed the moment in--her praise as my background. It was beautiful. She just kept going. I can't remember all the things she said because I was so involved in my enjoyment of the moment. She asked me about more things and I kept on promising, kept on giving what I did not have. For a while, I was promising her those things for God. Then I felt Him. "Daddy..." I thought, "please give her everything she desires." Then I thought, "How I love my little girl. How I want all of these things for her." My father then put the realization in my head that He loves her even more than I did and that He knew all of these things about her--and His plans for her are even bigger than she and I could dream together. I couldn't breathe. My God made His presence known in my little green car. She continued to praise at the top of her lungs and tears began to stream down my cheeks. I gasped for air. I was worried about if she saw me crying, she would stop praising, so I turned my face slightly away and kept on taking the short breaths I could as I felt His presence. He placed the realization in my heart that He wanted all of those things for ME just as much as He wants them for her. Although I had fought it throughout my life, it had always been that way. How foolish of me! How could I ever think He didn't want that for me? He's my daddy just like I'm her mommy. If I want all of these things for her, how does He NOT? "I want a horse too, daddy.", I told Him. With the help of the Spirit, I allowed myself to believe that He had heard me. My faith for a moment had become like hers--full and vibrant and real. I realized it was her faith that I wanted so badly right then; I wanted mine to be like hers, even if it was just in that moment. I remember what it was like when it was. I remembered it well. So I took a leap. "I want a horse too, daddy.", I whispered as I cried. I couldn't shout it; I didn't want to look foolish in front a faith-filled 5 year old. "I want a--" I could only mouth the rest. Then the Comfortor came over me and washed me with love. I couldn't catch my breath so I was glad she was still occupied, though at this point she was quiet and simply smiling while looking out the car window, innocence attached to her face.

Heaven used to be a scary place for her (and I remember when it was for me too). She used to cry at the thought of heaven. She was so attached to this world and the nowness of life. She didn't want anything to change. "It takes too long to come back from heaven," she once said (in reference to my father who has passed away). Now she can't wait to get there. She's excited about her future in heaven. One day I'll share again with her about her faith on this day. Her faith and God have taught me a valuable lesson...I'm going to have a horse.