Cut From a Different Cloth

 

Ginger and Hannah

I think the reason I find Hannah so inspiring is how different she is from me.  While she and I being polar opposites doesn't always translate into smooth school days, it does help me embrace perspectives I wouldn't normally see.    Hannah rode Ginger, aka the Little Red Mare, in a show for the first time.  It was...interesting.  The first two Western classes weren't too bad...she even managed to place sixth in both of them (there were only eight in the class) .  But the English classes, well...the English Pleasure was something akin to watching a train wreck: the longer it went on the more painful it became to watch and more disastrous if felt.  It went so poorly in fact that she decided to scratch the English Equitation class.

And I left the show scratching my head.  Hannah had worked so hard for the past year with Lacy, the big ole halter horse that she showed in the State Show, I was a bit sad to have abandoned  a horse that Hannah was consistently winning on.  Hannah had helped transform Lacy from a horse not so affectionately called "demon" and "heathen" to a lesson horse that actually earns her keep.  I was thinking, "Can't we just rest on our laurels for a little while, enjoy winning and coast through this show season?"

Not Hannah!  Not the slightest bit discouraged by the poor show, she is energized.  I actually think she's more excited by the prospect of transforming Ginger into a great show horse that she would be hopping on an already proven horse.

Isn't that one of the joys of parenting - learning from and being challenged by our kids?  God uses our kids to stretch us out of our comfort zone and show us things about ourselves that we might never see without them.  So, the next time Hannah and I are going head to head, I need to remind myself how much I can learn from her tenaciousness and spunk.