What a Horse Showed Me About Healing (at Gospel for Asia)

The sun was riding lower in the sky when Todd stepped into the pen. The horse was branded. She was branded with a mark of someone else—someone who had once owned her. Now she was there in the pen surrounded by a crowd of eager spectators. Everyone expected to witness this wild horse become broken and submit. But it was plain to see after some time that she was already broken. She was hurting and you could see the fear in her eyes.

The horse wanted nothing to do with Todd, who just wanted her to know she had so much potential. Instead of just being a stock horse, she could be what she was created for. But something happened to her long ago that kept her from allowing people near her.

She’d run laps in the pen, trying to find an escape, not wanting to be near the man who just wanted to love her. Then she’d walk backwards.

“I’ve never seen a horse do this before,” Todd said as he walked beside her, trying to earn her trust.

But whenever Todd got too close, she’d turn away.

“It’s as if my touch shocks her,” he said later.

She didn’t realize this man was different from those in her past.

Todd Pierce from Riding High Ministries shares a Gospel presentation using an unbroken and fearful horse at Gospel for Asia on April 16.

For an hour and a half, I sat on a quilt spread out on the spring, green grass watching and listening to Todd interact with this beautiful horse. Todd Pierce was once in the professional rodeo world riding bucking horses, and now he shares the Gospel with people all over the world while he tames wild horses. His ministry, Riding High Ministries, came to Gospel for Asia (GFA) on April 16, and staff and people from the community gathered to watch him demonstrate God’s love to people as he worked to break—or rather heal—this untouchable horse.

As I watched, I was trying to imagine what the horse’s story might be. What had she gone through to be this way? I didn’t know, but it made tears stream down my face. I knew there is a world just like this horse: broken, abused and scared.

The horse’s behavior and her resistance didn’t change the fact that Todd, an experienced horseman, wanted her to know she was OK—she could trust him. But she didn’t want to be loved. How could she receive his gentle touch when perhaps all she had received before were brutal jabs? Perhaps every time someone had drawn near to her it wasn’t to speak softly or to give a friendly pat. Maybe she had been used and crushed and bruised.

You could see the brands on her body. Todd could see them more clearly than the rest of us. She often kept that side of her against the bars of the pen—maybe to protect herself. But Todd wouldn’t give up on her.


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