Excerpts from “Hind’s Feet on High Places”
She began to understand quite clearly that truth cannot be understood from books alone or by any written words, but only by personal growth and development in understanding, and that things written even in the Book of Books can be astonishingly misunderstood while one still lives on the low levels of spiritual experience and on the wrong side of the grave on the mountains.
What she learned...
1.First, I learned that I must accept with joy all that you allowed to happen to me on the way and everything to which the path led me! That I was never to try to evade it but to accept it and lay down my own will on the altar and say, “Behold me, I am thy little handmaiden Acceptance with Joy.
2.Then I learned that I must bear all that others were allowed to do against me and to forgive with no trace of bitterness and to say to thee “Behold me I am thy little handmaiden Bearing with Love that I may receive power to bring good out to this evil
3.Thirdly I learned that you, my L, never regarded me as I actually was, Lame and weak and crooked and cowardly. YOU SAW ME as I would be when you had done what you promised and had brought me to the High Places, when it could be truly said “there is none that walks with such a queenly ease, no such grace as she” You always treated me with the same love and graciousness as though I were a queen already and not wretched little Much Afraid. I want So much to regard others in the same way! A very lovely smile broke out on his face at that, but he said nothing only nodded for the third time and waited for her to continue.
4.The fourth thing (she said with a radiant face) was really the first I learned up here. Every circumstance in life, no matter how crooked and distorted and ugly appears to be, if it is reacted to in love and forgiveness and obedience to your will can be transformed.
5.Therefore I began to think, my L, you purposely allow us to be brought into contact with the bad and evil things that you want changed. Perhaps that is the VERY reason why were are here in this world, where sin and sorrow and suffering and evil abound, so that we may let you teach us so to react to them, that out of them we can create lovely qualities to live forever. That is the only really satisfactory way of dealing with evil, not simply binding it so it cannot work harm, but whenever possible overcoming it with good.
At last He spoke, “You have learned well, Grace and Glory. Now I will add one thing more. It was these lessons which you have learned which enabled me to change you from limping crippled Much Afraid into Grace and Glory with the hinds’ feet. Now you are able to run, leaping on the mountains and able to follow me wherever I go, so that we need never be parted again. So remember this; as long as you are willing to be Acceptance with Joy and Bearing in Love you can never again become crippled and you will be able to go wherever I lead you. You will be able to go down into the Valley of the world to work with me there, for that is where the evil and sorrowful and ugly things are which need to be overcome.
Accept and bear and obey the Law of Love and nothing will be able to cripple your hind’s feet or to separate you from me. This is the secret of the High Places, Grace-and-Glory, it is the lovely and perfect law of the whole universe. It is this that makes the radiant joy of the Heavenly Places then he rose to his feet, drew her up beside Him and said “Now use your hinds’ feet again for I am going to lead you to another part of the mountain.”
Set me as a seal upon Thine heart
Thou Love more strong than death
That I may feel through every part
Thy burning, fiery breath
And then like wax held in the flame
May take the imprint of thy Name
Set me a seal upon Thine arm,
Thou Love that bursts the grave
Thy coals of fire can never harm,
But only purge and save.
Thou jealous Love, thou burning Flame,
Oh burn out all unlike thy Name
The floods can NEVER drown thy Love,
Nor weaken thy desire,
The rains may deluge from above
But never quench thy fire
Make soft my heart in thy strong flame,
To take the imprint of thy Name
