The Parable of the Pink Jacket

It was April of 1998, Lisa (13), Kristy (10), Julie (5) and I were attending the Equine Affaire at the Ohio state fairgrounds, an event that ran from Thursday through Sunday. Earlier that spring I had gone through Julie’s closet, getting rid of clothes that she had outgrown and found a pink spring jacket that still fit her.  That Saturday was the day before Easter. As we prepared to head to Equine Affaire for the 3rd day, I grabbed the pink jacket for Julie to wear. The weather was unusually warm for April and at some point midway through the day, I noticed that Julie no longer had her pink jacket! We had no idea where we had lost it, having been in at least five different large barns. Sadly I realized we were never going to see the pink jacket again.

The next day we returned to the Equine Affaire for a wonderful Easter service conducted by the Christian horse trainer, John Lyons. During the service one man explained how he had gotten involved with horses. A girl who was getting ready to go off to college drove past his farm, thought it looked like a nice place for a horse, and stopped to ask him if he wanted to take her expensive show horse. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and wondered why things like that never happened to me. Later someone asked everyone to stand who had ever witnessed a miracle. I was amazed at the number of people who stood and again I wondered why I had not had that experience.

Sunday was the last day of Equine Affaire and everyone was preparing to close down their exhibits. I asked the kids if they were ready to leave. They decided they wanted to go back to one particular barn and look through it one last time. We walked through, gazing at the beautiful horses one last time and then headed for the door to leave for home. Just as we passed in front of one of the last exhibits on our way out, the woman in the booth held up something and asked the lady next to her if she knew whether there was a “Lost and Found” anywhere.

There, dangling right in front of our faces, was Julie’s pink jacket! I had forgotten all about the jacket until then. The more I thought about it, the more I realized we had just experienced our own small-scale miracle. We had not stopped at that booth on Saturday, the day the jacket was lost, so I don’t know how the jacket ended up there. The timing was so perfect. How did we just happen to be walking past her booth at the very moment she was holding the jacket up in the air? I was amazed and wondered what God was trying to get through my thick head by this incident.

In the next few weeks some exciting things began to happen. We located a pony, Ebony, that was “child-safe” and my husband agreed that we could buy her for the kids. Then we got a call from my mom who said that someone she worked with had an extra horse that they weren’t using. She wanted to lease her for the summer and maybe longer, for $1.00! This all happened so soon after the recovery of the pink jacket, that I’ve begun to think of it as “The Parable of the Pink Jacket”.

I think God was using the jacket as an object lesson to show me that He is in control and that I should stop worrying about things. He is more than capable of providing for us. While it is great that these horses have been appearing out of thin air, I also realized that I should be content with what I have, whether it’s three horses or no horses! God has blessed me tremendously and I have so much, that it is truly sinful to complain about anything I don’t have.

Ephesians 3:20,21 “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or imagine, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”