08/03/2025
"If there is a debate whether or not faith and animals, particularly dogs and horses, go hand in hand, then allow me to settle it. When I was a teenager, my late mother encouraged me to watch our horse in the pasture. She gently and eloquently shared that watching a horse be a horse was watching God at work. We can bond and connect with our horses without being in arm’s reach as our horses graze, explore, and breeze through a pasture with curiosity, energy, and wonder. They are, in a word, majestic.
[...]
A little over a year before the pandemic began, I started riding again with weekly lessons on a couple of tired yet caring lesson horses. They helped rebuild my confidence after a horrific fall and give me a peace that had been hard to find. In April 2020, the barn closed to non-boarders. That’s when I realized how much one ride a week had done for my fatigued chaplain soul. I did not want to pause riding again. I never imagined owning a horse would ever be possible, as I often joke that chaplains are paid in tears, and the financial stress of owning a horse that most of us are all too familiar with, is worth the joy. After years of chaplaincy and attempting to create a community again in my church while the things I see at work are always at the forefront of my mind, my soul was finding peace again in the sanctuary of pastures and the holy ground of freshly dragged arenas.
Gunner, the barn name I gave my New Vocations graduate after my beloved Arsenal FC, stepped off the trailer and grabbed my heart the way a transformational faith experience does. At home, my half-human, half-dog, Oliver was that space. God sent him my last year of graduate school, in the fall of 2006 and 5 months after losing my first horse, and, in spite of always connecting with animals on a deep level, the life I shared with Oliver was like nothing I’d ever known. He was present for my grief over my horse and a source of pure love and joy.
That kind of love can only be from God."
🔗 Read Jessica Shannon's full article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2022/08/01/i-found-god-in-a-hopeful-place/
📸 © Evelyn Szczepanek / ES Equine Photography
