Today on the blog, Encompass Equine Therapist Krista Overmire, LPCC, offers encouragement and resources from her favorite author. For more than four years, Krista has been part of the equine therapy program at One Heart Stables (OHS) on the Christian Children’s Home of Ohio campus in Wooster. With the assistance of the OHS therapy horses, she has supported outpatient and residential clients through life’s many challenges.
My absolute favorite author is Kim Meeder. I read her book “Hope Rising” when I was a senior in high school, and reading this book dramatically changed my entire career trajectory. I have always been passionate about horses, but during my senior year of high school, I was starting to question whether I really wanted to go into the business of horses. I also always knew that I loved children, and mentoring has continued to be a God-given passion of mine. Kim’s combination of contagious faith in Christ, love for the hurting, and descriptive writing that puts you right in the middle of the action gave me hope for a career that I could passionately pursue in Christ’s name.
Here is an excerpt from her book “Hope Rising”:
“Sometimes it is only through devastation that we find the truth. Hardship can be like a savage cleansing fire. All the things we think of as necessary to our survival are soon revealed as nothing more than the dross of complacent luxury, consumed by the fire as it burns down to the true metal of the soul. Hardship uncovers the only thing we truly need to survive—hope.
Within every heart there exists a special place, a place where the hopes and dreams of the soul soar, unchained by logical or physical entrapments. For some, visiting this unique place is a frivolous waste of time, a mental blowing of dandelion spores.
For others, this place becomes the mountain meadow within their soul, the sweeping expanse of wildflowers and fragrant grasses, the streams of pure glacial water, where the spirit runs free.
It is a place where the impossible flourishes, where dreams survive the inferno of reality to become the miraculous wonders that draw us forward—it is the place where hope rises.”
Kim and her husband Troy are the co-founders of Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch in central Oregon. You can find her books online and in most book stores.