A Steep Climb

"Every happening, great and small,
is a parable whereby God
speaks to us and the art of life
is to get the message."
~ Malcom Muggeridge

A weary body, an achy head, and a worried mother's heart (dropped off her daughter to camp for the first time) arrived at Hoffman Hills Lavender Farm's Guest Cottage. The serenity of the place was the necessary and much needed balm for my overwhelmed soul.

In the anticipation of the drive around Mt. Hood to this solitary get away I picked up my Hinds' Feet on High Places book. The allegorical journey of Much-Afraid developing hind's feet so she can leap up to the divine presence of God in any circumstance and experience his love through accepting his will for her life was a reminder I needed.

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
shall abide under the Shadow of the Almighty.
Psalm 91:1

My surroundings gave me a visual picture of the rocky crag precipice, complete with a deer on the hillside, that Much-Afraid was supposed to climb. At this stage in her journey she had already taken a detour into the desert and then had to wander on the shores of loneliness far from the foot of the high places, wondering when the Shepherd would take her there, a journey of trust and obedience. She rejoiced to finally see them again across the plateau they were on. "Much-Afraid fell on her knees on the hilltop, bowed her head and worshiped. It seemed to her at that moment that all the pain and the postponement, all the sorrows and trials of the long journey as she had made, were as nothing compared to the glory which shone before her." But when she reached the base of it, there was no easy path to make the ascent. However a hart and hind (a male and female deer) showed the way up the "intensely steep track which went zig-zagging across the face of the cliff." She was just rejoicing moments before. Now, despair overwhelmed her.

I can relate to Much-Afraid. This steep precipice of fibromyalgia while I raise my children (one of which has some special needs) and support my preaching/pastoring husband can lead me to despair. The more I understand it, the steeper and more impossible the climb seems. However, just as Much-Afraid finally called on the Shepherd, I've set aside the weekend to be with him, alone. He teaches, encourages, and give the gift of a cordial called "Spirit of Grace and Comfort." My cordial came in the form of a good sermon by John Piper called, Spiritual Depression in the Psalms (Psalm 42). At one point Piper sees the psalmist preaching to himself and says, "Listen to Martin Lloyd-Jones take hold of this verse (Psalm 42:5):

'Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul?' he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says,: 'Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you.' (Spiritual Depression, 20-21)"

This made me reflect on my husband's talking to himself when no one is in the room. He is always processing his thoughts out loud and I tease him about it. Maybe there is something healthy in it after all. My inward thoughts are very negative and I don't dare voice them. I'm learning that if they can't be said out loud I shouldn't be listening to them. What I need to preach to myself are the truths of God and his promises given to me.

The conversation the Shepherd has with Much-Afraid just before her climb contain the kinds of things I need to preach to my soul as I make my own ascent. Jesus, the Good Shepherd asks her, "'But, Much-Afraid, what did I promise you in the Valley of Humiliation?'

'You said you would make my feet like hind's feet and set me upon mine High Places (Hab. 3:19).'

'Well..the only way to develop hinds' feet is to go by the path which the hinds use--like this one.'

'But I never dreamed you would do anything like this! Lead me to an impassable precipice up which nothing can go but deer and goats, when I'm no more like a deer or a goat than is a jellyfish.

The Shepherd laughed, ...'Why I don't know anything more exhilarating and delightful than turning weakness into strength, and fear into faith, and that which is marred into perfection. If there is one thing more than another which I should enjoy doing at this moment it is turning a jellyfish into a mountain goat. That is my special work,' he added with the light of great joy in his face."

The chosen precipice for me contains fibromyalgia, for others it may be cancer (like my hostess at Hoffman Hills Farm), or like my blogging friend at A Parson's Wife who is walking the unknown health problems with her husband while balancing some of her own. The Shepherd is faithful to remain close by and give places to rest like a safe cave in the midst of the climb.

At the conclusion of my solitary retreat I had visitors of two fawns and a doe. I did not see them leaping on the steep hillside, but rather right in front of me on the grassy field outside my cottage.

"I think of nature as an unlimited radio station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in." George Washington Carver