New Year's Eve. This is day one and post #1 of my Faith's Journey V-Blog* series. 2023 ends tonight at 11:59 pm and one minute after that we will usher in 2024. Now, when I say "we", of course I don't mean I am included in that collective pronoun. I am 62 years, 2 months and 23 days on Earth, which means I require my full three hours, pause for an hour to re-adjust and re-relax my achy old body, then three more hours, then pause for another hour to pee & re-relax..., then two more hours of sleep. I plan to be sleeping at midnight!

I know something about tomorrow too. It will come, whether I am ready or not! With that in mind, I asked The LORD, "Lord, what may I do to make 2024 the most meaningful season of my life on the planet?" After all, with each spin on it's axis, I am one day closer to meeting Him, face-to-face and I certainly want to be ready for the most important appointment of my existence. So I ask King Jesus, "What shall I do?" Who knows better, right?

I'm not saying He spoke the words in a booming voice from Heaven, "DEBBIE SHALL V-BLOG." What I am saying is that He has given each of us unique & specific gifts, and if we pay attention to HIM, He will lead us to develop certain skills & impart to us holy desires. So, here I am, answering a God call to write a V-Blog that I call Faith's Journey. I plan to write at this inter-space spot and share links to videos throughout the training and development of our new filly. As of this writing, we have not done it yet, but we will register her at the American Morgan Horse Association with the official moniker, Double-R-Faith, AKA Faith.

Specifically, what's this V-Blog all about? I am so glad you asked!

This series will chronicle the journey of a harried-n-carried-married couple (more about the "harried-carried" part, later) who have lived some six+ decades on Earth and have chosen to step into a traditionally, young person's domain as colt starters, ie., horse trainers, ie., horse crazy people. We will record our adventures of raising and training a young horse from 7 months old on up, as senior citizens. Having never started a young horse, before, this is a first for us. We plan make her safe to ride and would love to care for her all of our lives, but the good Lord will have the last word on that, as well as whether or not she will be with us all of her life. We are just along for the ride.

The back story would be a book, but for the sake of this limited context, I'll condense it. I am sure that many of my life events, life lessons and life <period> will pop in over the course of this, my Faith's Journey series. For now, let's suffice it to say that I am indeed called, among other things, to write. Throw in the fact that just one month ago someone gifted me a PIVO video tracking system through a seemingly "coincidental stroke of luck," it stands to reason that I shall now V-Blog. Ok, OKAY, so I don't really believe in luck, or coincidences and I am not even sure what a V-Blog is, but I do believe in the leading of the Lord. I have all I need to record Faith's Journey. So here we goooo!

As part of a life-long desire to, one day raise and train a young horse from the ground up, my dear husband, Mike and I purchased a weanling filly this past summer. She finally arrived at our place on October 27, 2023. Mind you, I am not a professional horse trainer, and I believe I have established the fact that I am no spring chicken. What I am is a risk-taker and a dream-chaser. (More about that in future Faith's Journey V-Blog posts.)

Since Faith's appearance at Too Far Out Farm two months ago, I have waffled between pride-n-joy excitement and shear panic. I mean, what the heck! If I don't do it now, then when? And... If I do it in this less-than-fit, 60+ year old body, it may be the death (or total disablement) of me! So I did what any starry-eyed, married woman would do. I asked my husband. He said, "Let's do it." I am pretty sure he is a risk-taker / dreamer too!

To be honest, there was a teensy-weensy bit of manipulation on my part and I knew it, so I took it to the Lord. He forgave me for taking advantage of my husband's propensity to live a happy life by maintaining a happy wife. The decision was confirmed, however, through Mike's sincere prayer request the next day at church. Mike asked our Christian brothers and sisters to ask the Lord to confirm that we would indeed make the right decision about whether or not to purchase the young horse. Later that day, which happened to be the very next time that Mike approached the Lord about our question, he opened the Bible and it "randomly" opened to 2 Corinthians 5:7.

Look it up, you will see.

My personal goal in sharing this part of my happy trail with you on this platform, in this manner is to prove that you're never too old (too disabled, too weak, too unintelligent, too far gone, too... FILL IN THE BLANK...) to trust God with your dreams.  Whatever the personal results of this journey, I'm sharing it with you in hopes that you will be inspired to begin your own version of Too Far Out Farm by trusting in the One who wrapped your soul up in a God-sized vision.

*I think I made up the term, V-Blog, but not sure. Let me know in the comments what you think so far...