As the calendar page turns, I’m reminded of one of our favorite places, Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch.
CPYR is just 9 acres of rustic buildings, paddocks, barns, horses, and joyous people who work hard and scatter love to the hundreds of visitors like a sower flings seed. It appears similar to small country places scattered across rural America. But Ed and I see it with eyes that reveal it as a miracle. As if by trick photography, we see the current bursting-with-life ranch as superimposed on the image of what it used to be: a barren, scraped raw cinder mine, a scar upon the beautiful land near The Three Sisters Mountains in Oregon. Looking at it through those eyes, the miracles that have transformed blight to hope are easy to recognize. *
This new year we wish you the transformed eyes able to see the miracles every day. But wait. Perhaps it isn’t different eyes we need, but transformed hearts. After all we’re a raggedy bunch of sinners who, when redeemed by Jesus Christ, God sees as his child clothed in righteousness. **
Encourage us and share some miracles you’ve seen with us? We’d love if you would.
* “CPYR was founded in 1995 by Troy and Kim Meeder. After the rescue of its first two horses, a remarkable transformation was set into motion: children began to come to the ranch. They were not coming for what they could get, as the horses were not ridable, they were coming for what they could give. In their efforts of making the horses better, the children themselves got better. After witnessing a mute girl speak freely to one of the rescued horses, it became vitally clear for the need to build a ranch where horses and children could help heal each other. A safe and peaceful environment was created at the foundation where broken children, horses, and families could find hope within the healing circle of unconditional love.” [ Back cover blurb from 2014 CPYR calendar]
Read more of Crystal Peak’s and Kim & Troy’s amazing story at the CPYR website here. Or read Kim’s stories of hope, triumph, and miracles at CPYR, Hope Rising and Bridge Called Hope.
** Scriptures referenced
Ezekiel 11:19
Isaiah 61:10