The Anatomy of Confidence

And Getting Back on When Life Throws You Off

“True resilience will never be a project of denial, but rather one of open witness. We become more human when we chose not to make less of our pain.”

-Stephanie Duncan Smith, Even After Everything

Ruth was an infant the first time I hoisted her up into the saddle. I will never forget how she sat there, upright and beaming, unaware, or perhaps undeterred by the size and power of the animal beneath her. And in some ways, she built a foundation of confidence from that place and posture moving forward, climbing up there again and again, until, in time she grew into the kind of rider who wasn’t put off by the dangers inherent to life with horses.

I’ve often heard that developing this type of courage by a certain age is somewhat essential to future success in riding. Because after some point, logic, reason, or knowledge of basic physics, constructs a threshold of fear that can be hard to bypass in adulthood or even late-adolescence. And so, it was a gift that Ruth was placed in the saddle when she was and had the good experiences there that she did. Because of both, her principle understanding of herself and these animals was formed on the other side of any such threshold. She believed that she was safe. And so, small as she was, her posture in the saddle spoke of a hidden courage that held her up as she rode.

Once she got older, there were some days when she and her paint horse, Shadow, would take off together alone, leaving me standing off the back of the barn, straining my eyes to catch the sight of Shadow’s white spots moving between the trees and Ruth’s colorful shirts bobbing above it. I loved those days. They were marked by a particular sort of lightness and freedom.

But then last fall, somewhat out of the blue, something shifted in Shadow. I don’t know if it was age or pain, or that as Ruth grew, she just started to ask too much of her, but Shadow started having bucking fits and Ruth fell off of her twice, the second time quite badly. After that, everything changed. It was like a plug had been pulled on Ruth’s confidence and as I watched it drain, I really wasn’t sure if it would ever fill back up again. As she seemed to deflate before my eyes, I searched myself for some way to catch that courage and give it back to her when she was ready to receive it, but you can’t do that for another person; courage isn’t something that can be trapped or transmitted in that way.

So, for the past few months I watched as she groped in the darkness cast by that collision, and as I did, I wondered if that last fall might have put an end to her trust in horses. There were times when I wasn’t sure if she was going to still love riding, or if she would ever sit on a horse with the same uprightness, freedom, and confidence ever again.

It’s difficult to observe your child as they struggle, and to realize that you can’t help them to recapture those hidden things that struggle seems to have converted into loss. Isn’t it?

I am sure that many of you know exactly what I mean, be that as parents, spouses, children, or friends. In those times when you have seen someone you love’s inner resources depleting right before your eyes, and realized as you did that you don’t have the power to prevent or restore it.

Though something that I have discovered to be true about trust and courage in riding, but I would say also say in faith, is that there are two distinct stages of it. The first involves the cultivation of a foundation. This is the stage in which a safe and secure connection is created from an early enough age that a person is then able to grow and to be formed from a place that is established upon a kind of trust in the world, in themselves, in others, and even in God that actually defies physics, logic, and reason. As in, when it’s held up against the reality of this world and the potential dangers inherent to life here in these bodies, it doesn’t really make sense on the surface. But it’s a confidence that is there, nonetheless and once its in place its actually very hard to truly deplete it.

But as beautiful as it is to see this primary level of blind courage or faith, it is only the first and most immature stage of its development. It’s not the end result, or the finish line. Instead, it’s the sturdy base upon which increasingly mature forms of these things can then be formed moving forward.

Mature courage, confidence, and trust, and the freedom that is produced on behalf of them, are the fruit of struggle, and those moments when that blind base of childlike faith is tested through exposure to the elements of life here. It’s a process that applies our faith to the context of our actual reality. And reality is sometimes harsh. Sometimes we will be flung out of the saddles where we once felt safe and secure, and when that happens we might even land face down in the dirt, bloodied and disoriented. After that we will be met with a choice, to let fear and pain stop us where we are, to abandon our progress and pursuit of things that we love and believe in, and to halt our growth along with it. Or we can dust ourselves off, freshly aware of our innate vulnerability, and climb back up again. And if we choose to do that, we will be changed.

Which is what the Apostle Paul was getting at when he so beautifully stated something similar in Romans 5:3-4, “we glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope.”

And one of the things offered to us through the season of Lent is the invitation to undergo this process. To submit ourselves to practices and prayers that have a way of helping us remember our finitude, our frailty, the vulnerability of this life, so that our faith and confidence in Christ can grow to greater degrees of maturity.

There are a lot of images of Christianity, particularly here in America, that are bent towards presenting life in Christ as being neat, tidy, and unceasingly triumphant, and while the resurrection is triumphant, that triumph was and is the fruit of a cycle that begins with being thrust down to the ground, bruised and bloodied, humiliated, betrayed, and shaken. And then, on Easter Morning we get to climb back up again, a little more aware of our vulnerability, a little less blind to the realities of this life, but also, a little more changed by a more mature understanding of the freedom that awaits us on the other side of it.

If you like this post and want to read more of my writing on falling down and getting back up again, and the benefits of struggle, you can check these two out:

Are Your Sure?

Thigomorphogenesis

Getting back to Ruth, she is heading to her first rodeo since last fall this weekend. She has a new horse that some friends are letting her try out, and he is a real gem. She rides differently these days. At first it was kind of hunched, and always bracing, but I’ve noticed lately that she is upright and really moving again. I would be so grateful if you guys would pray for her this weekend.