Our second son, Gabriel, is discerning religious life with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFRs) in New York City. Not long after he left for the friary, we were talking with him on the phone and asked what we could send that would be useful and received. The friars take their vow of poverty seriously, own very little, and share what they have with others and their Harlem neighbors, so sending a care package can be a challenge.

At the time, one of his brother postulants was looking for a particular spiritual book I didn’t know, called Hind’s Feet on High Places, by Hannah Hurnard. Since we have the luxury of the internet, I found it quickly on eBay and had it shipped to our home, intending to include it in our next package. By the time it arrived, however, we spoke with Gabe again and learned they had already obtained a copy. So I slipped it into our bedroom bookshelf, amongst other books I hoped to read soon.

I opened it late in my Lenten journey this spring and began the book with some trepidation. It is very much an allegory: The main character is named Much-Afraid, who lives with her relatives, the Fearings, in the Valley of Humiliation. She is lame and deformed and regards herself as unloved and even unlovable. She is betrothed to her cousin Craven Fear, a vicious bully—and the only bright spot in her life is that she works for the Shepherd, who is loved by all who follow him and feared and avoided by all who don’t. The shepherd promises Much-Afraid that, even in her lame state, he can give her hind’s (deer’s) feet and bring her to the high places where her relatives have no power over her. But the path seems impossible and contradictory at times.

See what I mean? Very much an allegory.

In the early pages, it felt like it would be too simple and childlike to hold my attention, but instead I found it to be a carefully observed account of the path to faith, conversion, surrender, and charity. I’ve not walked that path in its entirety, mind you—but the early stages of the journey were spot on. After only a couple of chapters, I found myself shuffling along in Much-Afraid’s shoes, then watching as she proceeded further that I have ever gone, and praying to God to bring me along, too.

One beautiful analogy I’d like to share: Much-Afraid observes an immense, tall waterfall, and is drawn to watch individual droplets as they plunge joyfully over the precipice, down, down, to the lowest place, then over and around the rocks at the bottom, completely unharmed and bubbling over with energy and song. She equates it to the plunge and joy of love—specifically, charity, the willing of good for others even at cost to ourselves. We are able to plunge into the lowest places and erode the hardness of stony hearts only by virtue of the potentiality we gain accompanying the Shepherd to the high places.

The author was a Christian missionary to the Holy Land in the 1940s. In the back of the book, she shares journal entries from the trip to Switzerland that inspired Hinds Feet on High Places and sounded the call in her heart to write for the Lord. She adds depth to the waterfall analogy by sharing that, when she left the high alps, she sat by a fountain in Geneva, observing:

[T]he Geneva fountain is exactly the opposite of the Brumbach waterfall. The fountain is manmade and strangely useless and artificial. It is like a symbol of unreal, forced love, just as the waterfall on the mountain slopes is the symbol of true love, freely pouring itself down in an ecstasy of giving. The Geneva fountain is forced up and falls down at once to the place from which it was driven upward. As soon as it is no longer forced against its natural inclination, it collapses. The same water is used over and over again, performing no useful function except to appear attractive and suggest a delight which is not real and spontaneous—whereas the real waterfall in the mountains is always exultantly giving itself and losing itself and carrying life wherever it goes.

Hind’s Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard, page 299

True love is not forced but comes from being raised to the heights of love by the One who is Love. Can we humble ourselves to follow, and trust him to bear us up when we can no longer climb?