Well, yesterday at the Illiniois State Capitol, Trent Loos and Frank Bowman, the President of the Horseman's Council of Illiniois stood outside the capitol and with two hundred horses in their horse trailer they began handing out stick horses to everyone who showed up. Horse enthusiasts, agricultural activists and even school children were handed not real horses, but a stick horse and conversations were started with those who were uneducated about the value of horse harvesting. By the time they were finished with their rally, almost everyone they talked to were either in agreement or had a better understanding of why we don't need a ban on horse slaughter. I said almost everyone, those on the Illiniois State Senate committee of public health weren't convinced and voted 7-0 to ban horse slaughter in the state of Illinois. But as I spoke to Trent today on the phone, he was true to form. He didn't feel defeated, just challenged.
It was a situation I glossed over. I didn’t have to deal with it every single day but it was often enough for me to go to my Bible study group and submit it as a prayer request. They would listen to me and invariably one or two of them would tell me, “You’ve got to take care of that. Get rid of it.” I knew I should, but I didn’t want to face the conflict and I was fearful of the consequences. Life would not be the same. I would have to find other avenues to fill the void that the resolution would create. So instead of facing it once and for all, I worked around it. I figured out ways to deal with it. My work was suffering because of it, but I kept making excuses that it would get better over time. If I just kept feeding the monster, it would be satisfied, and things would work out. But that’s not what happened. I had sleepless nights of worry; I was short-tempered and spent a lot of time wringing my hands and waiting for a better result. Before you start ...
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