Hope

It was easier to make Lizzie smile than any kid at the horse lot. She liked to smile.

She was an athlete and she became a solid rider and trainer. We can't forget that she was the one who put the early morning hours of riding and training into getting Hickory Wind into the woods. She patiently trained her Colonial Spanish horse, Trouble, on her own. On a wonderful day nearly exactly a year from today's date she rode him flawlessly in the woods for the first time. And a bit over two years ago she was working to give Jasmine the confidence that Emily Heard brought to fruition.

And she was kind. She cared deeply about other people. When all is said and done there is nothing better to be said of a person than that they were kind and cared about other people.

And she was seventeen.

Pain can cloud one's vision. The vision can become so clouded that one will fail to see the myriad of paths and opportunities that are ahead. Pain can cause one to think that the options don't exist, that there is only one way to end the pain.

Everyone needs to be constantly reminded that there are options. No thought increases the pain more than the thought that there is only one choice. No thought helps fight off the pain more than the thought that there are options available.

Pain can cloud one's vision so that one feels a particular false feeling of isolation--a false feeling of being genuinely alone. If one could somehow see how much they are missed when they are gone and just how many people there are out there who cared deeply about them--they would have never felt alone.

It strikes me this morning that I never told Lizzie that I loved her. I talked to her about many things and gave her my best advice when I thought the time was right, but I never told her the one thing that is the most important thing for any human to ever hear.

I am not going around with any feeling of false guilt that if only I had said or done something else things could have turned out differently.

And no one should feel that way. I am not saying that we always have the power to say or do something that can extinguish the pain like some form of emotional Novocain.

But I am saying that every time God grants us the extraordinary privilege of being able to help someone else we should jump at that opportunity.

Lizzy liked to smile.