You never know where you’re going to hear exactly what you needed.

It was a Sunday morning, and we were invited into church as we were finishing our run. He was an older man wearing his finest western outfit, smoking a cigar outside of a saloon with a horse trailer parked out front.

The church met inside the saloon.

The pastor finished the service, saddled up his horse, and rode down the street as one of the drovers in the 11:30 cattle drive.

It wasn’t how we expected to start our date day, but how could I turn down a direct invitation into church?

Then somewhere in the sermon, he asked a simple question.

“What do you think God is trying to teach you?”

Damn.

I’ll admit that lately I have spent a lot of time thinking about everything that has happened to us instead of asking what we are supposed to learn through it.

Then he said,

“If you dug yourself a hole, then fill it up. Get off your high horse, fill your hole, and straighten your course.”

I smiled because it sounded exactly like something a cowboy preacher would say.

But underneath the humor was something deeper.

There are things in life we don’t choose. Things we wish hadn’t happened the way they did, or hadn’t happened at all.

But there also comes a time where we have a choice, and only I can decide what I do next.

“only you can change your life”.

Later he said,

“We’re all going to have struggles, but it’s those who turn their misery into their ministry…”

I will never be the person who says, “Everything happens for a reason,” because our son’s traumatic accident should have never happened.

But since it did…

There is an opportunity to share what we learned. To teach other parents how to advocate when something doesn’t feel right. To have more compassion for other people’s circumstances. To give grace to others, and to ourselves.

I am still learning how to do that.

So you never know where you are going to hear exactly what you needed.

Apparently, for me, it was in a saloon on a Sunday morning… from a pastor whose horse was waiting outside.