God is Good - Abbea Faris

I can’t believe it is the end of the year already! What a great year the Lord has blessed us all with! I transferred to a different college this year and I absolutely love it! For a while God has been telling me to transfer to a different college, Cheyenne. So, a week before classes started, I transferred here and have loved it ever since! One of my favorite parts is The Roundup Bible Study group. It’s mainly rodeo kids, but the Bible study and the leaders have changed my life and so many others! The Lord is a wonderful one, if you allow Him to be in control and listen to Him. He won’t let me give up and keeps pushing me to achieve my goal of making it to the CNFR this year. Through this training, I try to have a positive attitude, live life to the fullest, have a smile on my face, and share how great the Lord is to everyone around.

 There is much of a difference in my practicing during this time of year. I’ll give my horses a couple weeks off, then I usually still practice throughout the winter, weather depending. At Cheyenne, rodeos ended in early October, but we are still practicing. It has been awesome to get the opportunity to work with other horses besides my good ones. I couldn’t be any happier with how all my horses are working; the good ones and green ones, God is so good! Classes are also going well. When you study something you enjoy, it makes school go by a little easier. I am taking a math, accounting, agricultural records, and an agricultural finance class.

I continuously go to jackpots throughout the year, but rodeos are pretty much over around here. Summer and fall rodeos did not go as planned. I was holding myself back through mental games and went through a slump of being 1 for 10 and it was a break out. The week between the last college rodeo and WRA finals, I finally got baptized. It was something that had been on my heart for the last year and a half, but the timing had never worked out. After being baptized, I felt refreshed, cleansed, a new person. I was confident again and felt myself trusting the Lord and His plan. I went out and finally made a solid run. Also, I was blessed to have a great day at a jackpot and won a saddle in the #9 roping!

Today is a good day for a good day- God Bless!

Putting the Pieces Together - Bobbi York

Rodeo is one of the biggest parts of my life. I live, breathe, and think about rodeo. If I could go to college and major in roping, I totally would. At the end of fall high school rodeo season, I’m sitting in a good spot to make it to nationals, and I am finally roping like I want to be. My school work is going great, I am loving all of my classes, and I’m closer to God than ever before. I mean, it's pretty easy to thank Him when everything is going right. 

During my last fall rodeo, my first calf wasn’t the way I wanted it to be. I threw it in the dirt and my horse didn’t work right, despite all of the time I put into scoring and working on her. After that run, I asked God if this is what I should be doing because at that moment, nothing was quite falling into place. But the next day, I chose to not worry about my last run. I focused on the run I was given at the moment, and it ended up being the best I’ve ever roped. I roped in a 2.4 and my horse was spot on. Leaving the arena, I received countless words of praise and encouragement. I thanked God for putting all the pieces together.

But sometimes, the pieces don’t fit together, and that’s just how God wants it. A month ago my uncle, who helped fill in as a dad in place of my absent one, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Being a Vietnam veteran, he was a hero in my eyes. A hand with a rope, a kind man, and tougher than dirt, he was everything I want to be. But on November 21, his pain and suffering came to end. Throughout it all I prayed for God to heal him. I prayed that God would let him get better. But that wasn’t in God’s plan. Four days after the funeral, my grandma was taken to the hospital with chest pain, rushed to a larger hospital, and put into the ICU. I am still praying for God to heal her; I want God to put all the pieces together. Like my rodeo this fall, I am still wondering if I am doing the right thing. I don’t know if I am praying for their healing, not just for them, but selfishly for me. Unlike that rodeo run, it's a lot easier to thank God for everything when it's all working out for you. However, I am trying to thank Him for everything He has blessed me with. As it says in Romans 8:18, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Like I said earlier, rodeo is one of the biggest things in my life, but it's not THE biggest. That’s a spot reserved for my Lord and Savior. I try to live for Him, let Him work in and through me, and lean on Him.