I Can't Do This Alone

I do not know enough for this job.

I shook my head at myself as I walked out into the arena where the camp horses were gathered. They had arrived only minutes before, and all the wranglers were setting out to catch each horse and look them over. That might not seem hard, but to someone with less experience than everyone else, who was trying to prove that she was capable, it was a daunting task. I really had no clue what I was doing. In the end, I managed to catch one of the horses while the rest of the team checked the others.

I shouldn’t even be here. I’m so clueless. What do they think of me? The thoughts swirled through my head, and I was torn. Working with horses for a summer was my dream job. But now that it came to it, I wasn’t sure I could make it.

A little bit later I was working with Clare–the Horse Barn Director–to catch one of the mares. The guy we leased the horses from had warned us that the mare was very hard to catch, and I had been depending on Clare to teach me how to approach her. But just then, Clare was called away to make sure the feed for the summer was put in the right place. Now alone, I moved closer to the mare and backed away from her when she started moving away from me. Around and around we went, and I wasn’t seeing any progress.

I can’t do this. Since I was not someone to give up easily, I was ready to keep going on and on forever. But I was also overwhelmed, uncertain, and frustrated. Just then a snippet of “Aim High,” a Camp Wakonda song I’d just heard for the first time, popped into my head.

“I can’t do this alone/ I need You by my side/ To guide me home/ To help me find the strength to carry on/ To help me find a way when I am lost.”

I can’t do this…alone. Well, if there was one thing I’d learned in the past few years, during which I had struggled to find any friends, it was that I am never alone. “God,” I whispered, “I’m not strong enough for this. But you brought me here for a reason. Give me the strength to carry on.”

I was right. I wasn’t ready for this job. I wasn’t strong enough, I wasn’t good enough, I didn’t know enough.

But I wasn’t plunging in alone.

This summer has been an incredible one; I’ve learned more than I could have imagined. I’ve grown closer to God as I’ve depended on Him daily for things as simple as catching a horse. With God’s help I was able to catch that horse, and by the end of the summer she would come up to me and follow me around. Although He hasn’t always made things perfect for me, He’s always given me the strength to carry on. He has never failed me, and I know He never will.

Now I get to carry that truth back home as I’m diving right back into school, trying to find a job, and doing a lot of things I’ve never done before. It’s not any less scary than before, but I know that I can do them, because all things are possible with God.