What if the place you’re running from is exactly where God is waiting to find you?

The most extraordinary stories of transformation and resilience often come from the most unexpected places—and Haylee Graham’s Take the Horse and Run carries that kind of quiet, surprising grace. As we enter the story of a girl, her beloved horse, and a journey that stretches the heart, Haylee invites us into a moment of grace—a tender reminder that even when life feels overwhelming, we are still seen, still loved, still never truly alone. God meets us right where we are: weary, burdened, and searching. This is a story about running from pain and somehow finding yourself held by God in the very midst of it—and how, even when the world feels like it’s closing in, hope has a way of finding us. It’s a joy to welcome Haylee to the farm table.

Guest post by Haylee Graham

“Church? On a Friday night?” I groaned to Yukiko on the phone. I hadn’t seen Kiko in over a year. She had tried to reach me by text over a dozen times, but I had never responded because, you know, I was on the run. 

“Okay, so I shouldn’t have said church. It’s more like a life group.”

“That’s still church,” I grumbled.

At the psych ward, they didn’t have a church building or chapel. They didn’t even have Bibles. They just gathered in a room and talked about God’s boundless, infinite love that could be accessed from anywhere and everywhere.

Church had never really been my thing.

Throughout parochial middle school and high school, we were squished like sardines in the gymnasium for Catholic mass every week, reciting prayers we didn’t believe in—addressed to saints we didn’t trust—so they could deliver them to a God we didn’t even know. Still, I knew that the God I discovered in the motel Bible had heard my prayers, and I believed he had shown up for me in so many different forms— the patients in the psych wing, and even the Korean nurse.

I was curious if God was showing up in Kiko too.

When I met Kiko outside my house that night, she greeted me with, “Where have you been, Graham-cracker?” and a tight hug.

 “Everywhere,” I said honestly.

As she drove, Kiko cheerfully filled me in on the years I had missed. She had met and married her husband, Caleb, and together they had found their faith. I never asked what church she was taking me to—I didn’t care. I was just grateful for another familiar face, especially one who hadn’t been entangled in the chaos surrounding Cartier. I trusted Kiko. She had built a friendship with me long before ever inviting me to church and there was a safe space between us.

When I took my seat in the group, I was shown a God who was all accessible and all powerful. I could reach him through the smallest whisper of a prayer—just like my friends at the psych ward had told me. When the pastor quoted John 3:16, there was an unmistakable lift in my spirit, which made me sit a bit taller. The youth pastor affirmed my friends’ truths, explaining God’s relentless pursuit to reconcile humanity to himself despite the chasm of sin that had separated us from him. 

“God demonstrated his love for us by taking on human form through Jesus Christ,” the pastor said. “During Jesus’ three years of ministry on earth, he guided his listeners and followers through his teachings and actions, illuminating the path of righteous living. But there was an ultimate act of love he willingly demonstrated. He bore the weight of our sins, so we could have a redeemed relationship with God forever as his children. All of this is found in the Bible.”

My whole life I had been vying for someone to choose me, and I hadn’t realized that somebody already had.

The words hit me with weight. That’s what Z had been trying to communicate to me. That’s what Tanya meant when she hugged me tightly and told me I was loved, whether I wanted to believe it or not.

My whole life I had been vying for someone to choose me, and I hadn’t realized that somebody already had. I felt small and insignificant and forgotten, and yet, despite the dark echoes of what my feelings told me, I was being told that I was worthy, I was loved, I was seen, I was heard, and I could choose to live a new and redeemed life.

A glimmer of hope surged to life in my heart—perhaps the same hope that my friends at the hospital had; the same hope that gave them strength to continue from within that white-walled prison, or from the prisons of their own minds. 

The youth pastor read Jesus’ words aloud: 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Well, I am weary and burdened, God, I thought with a half-shrug. And I could really use some good rest for my soul, and maybe some beauty sleep too.

Jesus offered me a free gift of redemption. All I had to do was lay down the broken pieces of my life at the foot of the cross.

That was it. That was all. “Everything to gain,” the pastor said. “Nothing to lose.”

It sounded like the truth, but when that invitation was extended to accept Christ into my life, I slumped in my seat.

I was hesitant to take that big of a leap, but I was listening, and I was receptive, and I figured that was good enough for now.

Throughout my upbringing, Jesus had been depicted as a valiant figure who stood for morality, justice, love, and compassion. I could admire him. I even liked the guy. I just stopped short of loving him as much as I was told he loved me.

As the sermon concluded, Kiko ushered me into the midst of the youth group, and in an instant, I found myself encircled by a diverse number of faces that spanned generations.

I felt bounded by love, embraced by community, and energized by the faith and hope and infectious fervor present in the room.

I felt reassured and comforted; seen and heard and understood.

I never thought I’d feel so safe again.

~ Excerpt from Take the Horse and Run