Like the faint glow of sunrise, hope shines every more brightly…read on…
“Much-Afraid,” said the Shepherd again, “tell me, what is the matter. Why were you so fearful?”
“It is the way you have chosed for me to go,” she whispered. ”It looks so dreadful, Shepherd, so impossible. I turn giddy and faint whenever I look at it. The roes and hinds can go there, but they are not limping, crippled, or cowardly like me.”
“But, Much-Afraid, what did I promise you in the Valley of Humiliation?” asked the Shepherd with a smile.
Much-Afraid looked startled, and the blood rushed into her cheeks and ebbed again, leaving them as white as before. ”You said she began and broke off and then began again, “O Shepherd, you said you would make my feet like hinds’ feet and set me upon mine High Places.”
“Well,” he answered cheerfully, “The only way to develop hinds’ feet is to go by the paths which the hinds use- like this one.” Much-Afraid trembled and looked at him shamefacedly. “I don’t think- I want- hinds’ feet, if it means I have to on a path like that,” she said, slowly and painfully.
“Oh, yes you do,” he said cheerfully. ”I know you better than you know yourself, Much-Afraid. You want it very much indeed, and I promise you these hinds feet…I don’t know anything more delightful than turning weakness into strength, and fear into faith, and that which has been marred into perfection.”
The first time I read this I cried. The second I was still awestruck. The third time when my breath was still taken away, I knew I had to share with you. God knows I’ve been fearful, worried, uncertain, anxious…yet walking through those fears has made them vanish.
An excerpt from “The Uncommon Woman: Making the Ordinary Life Extraordinary” by Susie Larson