Lemon Meringue Pie was a fairly short, heavy-built, wall-eyed, piebald mare. A wall-eye is a whiteish blue eye instead of a brown one, called a pigmented iris (at least, that’s what Brits call it. Don’t ask me what Americans call it), and a piebald is a horse with white and black or chocolate-brown spots. Lemon Meringue Pie, “Lemon” for short, was so called because she was a piebald.

She also had “wicked smooth” gaits (gaits referring to the different ways in which a horse moves), and that made her an ideal option for my first ever equine vaulting lesson.

Equine vaulting is like acrobat and gymnastics but on horseback. There are three types of vaulting: individual vaulting, where one person perfoms; pas de deux vaulting, where two people (usually a man and a woman) perform together; and squad vaulting, where a team of many different vaulters all team up, having as many as three on a horse at the same time!

I became familiar with the vaulting tack, which was scarce. A vaulting surcingle, which is basically a special girth with handles attached to it, and a saddle pad. That was all there was. No stirrups, no saddle, no reins. My instructor, Miss Molly, would be the lunger, because there is always someone controlling the horse in vaulting known as the lunger. They hold a lunge line (hence the name) and a lunging whip, and they control the horse.

We started at raw basics because that is where one starts. It’s like Paul said. If a man is 60 years old and doesn’t know God, he’s a babe in the truth. It’s the same with anything you start doing. We went to the trot, and I felt a little insecure, but Miss Molly walked me through it, and soon I was using nothing but my seat and legs to keep me on Lemon. It was amazing!

God wants us to be like that. To let go of what we’re holding onto and be at one with Him.

There’s a GIF that my sister once sent me bearing the words: “Don’t call me a cowgirl until you’ve seen me ride.” I never would’ve and still wouldn’t call myself a cowgirl, but I think I came as close to it as I ever will…

Miss Molly walked Lemon into the center and had her stand there while I practiced around-the-worlds. I brought my legs over her neck and rump, going in the order of forward, side, backwards, side, forward.

“Good!” Miss Molly applauded me as I came back to face front, grinning at my success. “Now try the other side.”

I have no idea which leg it was or when, but at sometime I bumped Lemon on the rump. I was facing her tail when I felt her tense, and only one thought went through my head:

HANG ON!

But to what? Immediately, Lemon burst into a fit of bucks. I jammed my knees and thighs into her to keep me as stable as possible and tried to make my hindquarters heavier so it was easier for me to sit and harder for her to buck. With nothing else to do, I grabbed the back of the saddle pad and held on with all my might.

There was a lull in the bucks, and I was praying desperately that Lemon would stop before I became unseated.

But if you’ve ever wondered why horse authors describe getting bucked off as getting “popped out of the saddle,” I can unfortunately now tell you why. When Lemon threw that big buck, the impact she literally bounced me straight off of her back and onto the ground below. It feels like you got “popped.”

And that’s the alternative of how we can be when God approaches us. It felt like Lemon was hell-bent on getting me off of her. Truth is, she probably wasn’t. But sometimes we are so determined to get God off of our backs that eventually He has no choice but to say, “There’s nothing more I can do for you. I’m sorry” and slide off.

Bottom line, in Christianity, there’s a difference between being lemon meringue pie and being just plain lemons.