We get to see so many triumphs at the ranch that it truly has become a place of victory. It's just a matter of time to see it manifest. However, the greatest of those triumphs have been known to come with the greatest of fears. Becky...who can forget her? She came to the ranch with one of the greatest displays of fear I've ever witnessed personally. She was deathly afraid of horses but had to be there to complete our basic horsemanship program to satisfy her school's work study program alongside her classmates. I've watched her back into the corner of stalls to avoid contact with horses; literally freeze in motion in the presence of horses. I've watched her shake uncontrollably; transition from one state of shock to the next. I saw her turn purple and watched fear violently paralyze her. Most would think that she was trying to crawl her way out of a pit of rattlesnakes in witness of her responses. I eventually challenged her to trust me that she'd be confident enough to ride in 3 months time. She declared that she'd never touch a horse and didn't care what consequences she'd have to face from her school authorities. Let's pause here to say that fear is one big lie. It is fed and thrives by one's belief in its content. It has no power of its own. It needs human power to survive...and that power is belief. Although, there are plenty of reasons to respect a horse's nature and adjust to its behavior, it is a terrible miscalculation to fear one. As a result of this miscalculation, we were left with some heart-wrenching episodes watching fear consume, control, and torment our guest. Thankfully we knew the antidote to fear. It's love...and we believe perfect love casts out all fear.

I'll never forget it...my first time riding Virginia. I was just a little country kid from GA who'd been recently transplanted in southwest FL. Much had changed. I'd come from a dense agricultural environment. My family had spent most of their lives on a farm. Much of what we ate, we either grew, hunted, or fished for. My two favorite hideouts and favorite places to be were the nearby sale barn and the dam supported creek tucked a little deep in Georgia's woods that I was forbidden to go to. Who can say no to a good-sized creek in the dead of of Georgia summer that had plenty of room for me to swim along with enormous carp, snapping turtles, soft shell turtles, lamp eels, catfish, beaver, and water moccasins. Yep...water moccasins were the reason I was forbidden. My grandma declared all my childhood that there was a water moccasin bed in the creek. I could never tell her that all the years I'd been sneaking down there to swim, I'd never saw one. However, I saw plenty of rattle snakes on the way there and heard talk of old folks about gators and cougars in the area. We kids knew how the old folks around there were...scared of everything having to do with fun. Therefore, we simply couldn't listen to everything they said. I was a complete country Georgia boy in every sense of the phrase right until tragedy struck.