Cactus County might be the last place you expect to find a beautiful Christmas story. There’s nothing wrong with Cactus County. In fact, everyone there is happy and content. There are no locks and no jails and no fences, for it’s that safe. But it’s missing the hustle and bustle of New York in December or the magic of the ordinary suburb decorated with lights shining in the freshly fallen snow. Cactus County, as you might imagine, is full of cacti and void of snow. And while the county is a safe place, not too far across the Cactus River is the Badlands, “good only for hideouts for Bad Men.”
Calico, the horse who isn’t very pretty but is very smart, might be the last hero you expect on Christmas. Calico, the “fastest horse in all of Cactus County,” belongs to a cowboy named Hank. Hank saved Calico from wolves when she was a baby filly, forging a strong bond that they could even understand each other. She’s certainly an impressive horse, but unlike any other Christmas character I can think of.
And Stewy Stinker and his gang of Bad Men—so bad they’d “hold up Santa Claus on Christmas Eve”—are probably not what you’d expect in a Christmas classic. Stewy Stinker likes to twist his long mustache and rides with other Bad Men, the likes of Butch Bones and Snake Eye Pyeson. When Stewy Stinker hears about a mysterious and precious load coming, he determines to steal it all. He’s nothing but a no-good scoundrel of a cattle rustler who wants to rob a stagecoach—not very Christmasy.
But Virginia Lee Burton’s Calico the Wonder Horse is the type of Christmas story we need to read all year. In the vein of the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge, Calico the Wonder Horse tells the story of Christmas conversion.
When Stewy Stinker and his Bad Men try to steal the stagecoach, they don’t know that the mysterious and precious load was the Christmas presents Hank had bought for the children for Christmas. Hank isn’t sure what to do with a group of men who try to steal from children, but Calico does. The good, merciful invitation extended to the Bad Men confronts them with the ugliness of their sin. They’re ashamed. They’re sorry. And they’re changed.
Like the Grinch and Scrooge, who are shocked at what they see when they look in the mirror, Stewy Stinker and his friends give up being Bad Men when they see their sin and their need for change.
The most exciting part of Calico the Wonder Horse isn’t the amazing horse and her cowboy who help save the town. It isn’t the innocent community being robbed by Bad Men or the chase that happens afterwards. The most exciting part is that Bad Men found out they were bad and didn’t want to be anymore.
My children have heard the testimonies of a lot of people this year. People proclaiming that they were dead, but now they are alive. An enemy of God, but now a child of God. Lost, but now found, held safe in the father‘s hands. When my children hear someone proclaiming the work of the Lord in his heart, I have full confidence that they know dead men can be raised to life and that bad guys can change. They’ve been raised on a steady diet of books that prepared their imagination to hear real people tell their own conversion stories.
This is why we need Calico the Wonder Horse and other Christmas conversion stories: Conversion is the right response to the story of Christmas. God came to earth in flesh for his glory and our good, allowing bad men and women, and bad boys and girls, to change.
When your own children are confronted with their sin and feel its crushing weight, they should have a mental library of conversion stories—all true, but some of which may not be real—telling them what good is waiting for them if they’ll turn away from their sin and turn towards Christ. And when that happens, your whole family’s Christmas celebration will be all the sweeter.
The Burkes lived overseas for three years and have been to almost 20 countries together, surviving some adventures they will never speak of to the grandparents.
- Calico and the Christmas Conversion - December 23, 2024
- A Warning About Having Children - November 4, 2024
- Review: Everything Sad is Untrue - January 23, 2023
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