A Touching Story

The following story came across my desk this week and the author is unknown.  The story is food for thought and is entitled TWO HORSES. I hope you will enjoy the story.

Just up the road from my home is a field with two horses in it.  From a distance, each horse looks like any other horse, but if you get a closer look, you will notice something quite interesting. One of the horses is blind.

His owner has chosen not to have him put down but has made him a safe and comfortable barn to live in.  This alone is pretty amazing!

But, if you stand nearby and listen, you will hear the sound of a bell.  It is coming from a smaller horse in the same field.  Attached to the horse’s halter is a small, copper-colored bell.  It lets the blind friend know where the other horse is so he can follow.

As you stand and watch these two friends, you’ll see that the horse with the bell is always checking on the blind horse, and that the blind horse will listen for the bell and then slowly walk to where the other horse is, trusting he will not be led astray.

When the horse with the bell returns to the shelter of the barn each evening, he will stop occasionally to look back, making sure that the blind friend isn’t too far behind to hear the bell.

Like the owners of these two horses, God does not throw us away just because we are not perfect, or because we have problems or challenges.

He watches over us and even brings others into our lives to help us when we are in need.

Sometimes we are the blind horse, being guided by the little ringing bell of those who God places in our lives.

And, at other times we are the guide horse, helping others to find their way.

I thought about this story as I read another horse story in The Richmond Times last week about the wild horses at Corolla, N.C.  It seems that volunteers were out on four wheelers every summer day making sure that beach goers stayed away from the horses.

It was reported that patrols came across college students bouncing beach balls off the horses.  A couple of years ago a colt died of intestinal blockage after tourists fed him watermelon rinds.  Why can’t people follow rules and leave the wild horses alone?

We often vacation at Corolla and have seen first-hand how uncaring folks can be.  One rule is to stay fifty feet away from the horses and one sees camera-wielding tourists running close up to a horse almost every day.

Our animals are meant to be loved, cared for and looked after.  Don’t have an animal if you can’t look after it in a proper way.  God put them on this earth for a reason.