Hinds` feet on high places, Hurnard, Hannah

A timeless mystical classic. Beloved by Christian women.

How deeply we who love the Lord of Love, and desire to follow him, long for the power to surmount all difficulties and tests and conflicts in life in the same exultant and triumphant way. To learn the secret of victorious living has been the hearts desire of those in every generation who love the Lord. - Hannah Hurnard

Hinds Feet on High Places is an allegory of the Christian life, much like The Pilgrims Progress. The protagonist is not however a Mr. Greatheart, rather she is Much-Afraid. We begin with her in the village of Much-Trembling in the Valley of Humiliation, surrounded by her relatives The Fearings. She is a servant of the Chief Shepherd, whom she deeply desires to please, and she seems to be happy filling her mind with verses from the Song of Songs. Secretly, she feels defeated by life; her mouth is crooked, deforming her face and her speech, and she is crippled, able only to limp and stumble through life. Finally, her relatives all hate the Chief Shepherd, and are about to force her to marry Craven Fear whom she despises. Her dream is to have feet like a hinds that will carry her gracefully to the High Places, far from the Valley of Humiliation and into the Kingdom of Love.

The book is an extended meditation on the victorious life, and on the Song of Songs. It is far from sentimental. Although it is an allegory, its protagonist, Much-Afraid, is a very real character, because she is partly based on Hannah Hurnard. This realism fully engages the reader, and is one of the reasons that Hinds Feet on High Places has powerfully moved so many.

Hannah Hurnard was born in 1905 in Colchester, England, to Quaker parents. She suffered many phobias and, in addition, had a stutter. Growing up she did not feel the presence of God in any way, but rather found the Bible and all things religious intensely boring. At the age of nineteen, all that dramatically changed, and she felt that God was asking her to serve him with her stuttering mouth. She developed a love of the Bible, went to Bible College, and then to Haifa, Israel as a missionary. She became a successful writer. Hinds Feet on High Places is her most famous book.