Much-Afraid and her journey to the High Places

This week has been very crazy! So much has happened, and I have learned so much! There are two main lessons that I have been learning this week, God has truly taught me so much, and I am still learning even more!

For choir, we have a book that we all read together, usually we read it over tour, but this year it is a long one, so we started early. The book is called Hind’s Feet on High Places, and has quickly become my favorite book. It is an allegory of a girl’s life (Much-Afraid is her name), and her journey to the High Places where the Shepherd is waiting to give her a new name.

Currently we are not that far into it, but we just read about the very begining of her journey. The Shepherd gave her two guides to assist her in her journey, their names were Suffering and Sorrow. When she heard their names, she became really scared and asked the Shepherd why he did not give her Joy and Peace. The shepherd responded that if he gave her Joy and Peace, she would not be transformed on the way to the High Places. It takes Suffering and Sorrow to mold her into the person that she needs to be in order to be able to enter into the High Places when she reaches them. Much-Afraid very hesitantly complied with the Shepherd, and began her journey with Sorrow and Suffering because of her great love for the Shepherd and for her great want to reach the High Places.

This is such an amazing picture of how God uses the really hard things in our lives to mold us and shape us into the people that He is creating us to be. While things may seem unfair here on earth, and we seem to have reached rock bottom because life is so hard. We have to remember that God has given us sorrow and suffering as GUIDES, things that will lead us through this life, reshaping us to be the people that God wants us to be.

The second thing that I have been learning is that it is ok to be vulnerable, because God is in control of all things, and will be with us forever. We can shut ourselves off from the world and tell ourselves that we are not ready to do something, and that we don’t have to move on until we are comfortable with what is going on. We will never be really ready for anything. It is as plain and simple as that. There will always be something out there that could potentially hurt us, and if we are always running from the thought of pain, how are we ever going to overcome it and move on (this goes back to Much-Afraid's story)? We won’t and that is all. We can think and mull it over all we want, but in the end, we will be no different.

Does this mean that it is easy to let go and allow yourself to be vulnerable? Not at all, in fact as I am seeing for myself, it can quite often mean that you are telling yourself something over and over again, something that you know in your heart is true, but that your experience of the world tells you does not make sense. I feel so bad that I can’t just believe my heart, and Lord willing, perhaps I will be able to do just that. It may take a while, but I have some pretty amazing friends who I think will stick by me and help me to get through whatever life brings my way.