The title of this post isn’t a euphemism. Last week, I really did fall off a horse. I wish I could tell you that the horse bucked or did something crazy and I managed some theatrical heroics, but the truth is I made a simple error while riding. I didn’t have my weight properly distributed, and my foot slipped out of the stirrup as I was turning a corner. I’ve lost a stirrup many times before, but because my weight was in my stirrup when it slipped, I got tossed off balance and I couldn’t correct myself. That simple error landed me in the dirt, very fast and very hard. I landed flat on my back and hit my head. When I landed, I honestly thought I had broken my back, it hurt so dang much. I also showed signs of a concussion, so with all of those things combined, my boss called 911, and I left the barn in an ambulance.

After several hours and several images taken of my head and my back, pelvis, and femur, I was discharged from the hospital in a wheelchair with a prescription for pain pills and instructions to take it easy. My sweet husband took me home, put me in a hot bath, gave me my medicine and then tucked me into bed. The next day, I tried to stand, but every time I did, I would get dizzy and sick to my stomach. Pain would shoot up my back, and I would topple back into bed.

Needless to say, it’s been a rough 10 days.

I’m slowly getting back on my feet, and I’m realizing that it’s going to be a long time before I can get on a horse again. And all I can think about is that stupid stirrup, and how it shouldn’t have happened at all. I felt so stupid when I fell, and my disgust at my mistake was the first thing I talked about when the dust cleared. Well, that, and hollering about how much my back hurt (this was all before I fainted, of course). But then I also think about how if I had been riding a bigger, taller horse (I was riding a smallish horse at the time) or riding at a faster gait (we were at a comfortable trot), the fall could been much, much worse. So I’m both disgusted at myself as well as grateful things aren’t worse.

I suppose I could turn this post into a discussion about how life is fleeting, how we should cherish what we have. Close calls with devastating things always makes a person grateful, and I’m not any different.

But I’m more obsessed with how a simple thing was such a large catalyst for so many bigger things. Losing a stirrup happens all the time, it’s a simple thing that is easily, quickly fixed. And yet this time, it caused all of this other stuff to happen. I keep going over and over it in my head, how I lost my balance, how I lost my reins, how I grasped at the mane of the horse before I fell, how the horse sped up because he felt me move forward, how it felt when I landed–all of this pain and struggle, because of a stirrup?

Simple things matter.

And I’m not just talking about simple things causing big, nasty things to happen. Simple things can cause really good things to happen, too. We all have a story or two of a simple thing that somebody else did that made our life better, or made us feel loved. We’ve all had experiences that allowed us to know that the Lord knows us and is watching out for us, that He sees and understands our hearts. We have all had simple answers to prayer. Profound, deep, but simple answers, again letting us know that God lives.

I love simple things. I wish I was better at doing simple acts of service. When you break it down into those terms, service doesn’t seem so overwhelming, or such a burden. If you think about how you can keep it simple, everything can look a little easier. And the good stuff, like the bad stuff, can last a long time.

I hope to be back on a horse sometime soon. I don’t know how it will feel, though, if it will be scary emotionally. I’d like to think it will be fine, but a lot about riding is sort of a mental game, and I’m not sure what kind of mental space I will be in once I get my leg swung up over the saddle and say “Walk on”. But I know that for that first ride, I will just keep it simple.