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This is the podcast that walks you down the path from not enough to brave enough for love for life, for making a difference in this world. However, that looks for you. This is where the secret inner hero society is alive and well. And you are going to be inspired by the stories of women who are doing it, being brave enough to love, again, to live this life with courage. I'm Bernice McDonald, and I am excited to have you here. So get on in here and let's do this.
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In the last episode, I told you the story of Much Afraid the mousy girl with club feet, who lived in the small village of Much Trembling, who was pretty 'Much Afraid' of her own shadow. She was being controlled by her relatives. The Fearings. What she wanted most of all was to stop being afraid, to go with her good friend, the Good Shepherd to the beautiful life experienced only by those who lived in the High Places but the journey was long and it would be a dangerous and difficult one.
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She would need courage and also agree to two other things. One was to have the thorn of love planted in her heart, which is a painful thing. And secondly, to be willing, to allow two companions, to walk with her as her guides. Their names were Sorrow and Suffering well, Much Afraid, agreed to the conditions.
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Although, you can understand, she would rather have skipped over the pain, the sorrow, the suffering, but she knew it was the path. The Path of life. And she trusted the Good Shepherd. I love this story. It's from the book Hind's Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard, which was written in 1955. I read it in my twenties. A friend gave it to me and it absolutely lifted my heart so much.
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In fact, it's a very key part of why today, so many years later, I see life as a Path. I see each of us as a heart walking that Path. When we're born, we enter it. When we die, we leave it. And in between all kinds of things happen, I would encourage you to go back and listen to the first part of the story in the last podcast, Episode 53, if you wanna get the full benefit of what we're talking about today.
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Much Afraid did make that journey. And she reached the High Places. It was the beautiful life, the sweet life that can be earned by all of us who are willing to grow, to learn and to give. Much Afraid wasn't alone. There, her club feet were actually transformed to feet like those of a magnificent mountain goat called a Hind, and they allowed her now to leap and to skip over the hard times.
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That's the metaphor, right? The rocky ledges, the mountain ridges that we come across. Her name was no longer Much Afraid. She now was Grace and Glory and her companions who began the journey with her as Sorrow and Suffering were transformed into Joy and Peace.
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So today let's see what Much Afraid saw as the biggest lessons that had grown that love within her heart. The thorn that had hurt so much to begin with had grown and become a beautiful flowering plant that was ready to give and to bless everyone around her. Let's see what she says.
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"So for a long time, she sat silent, remembering, wondering, and thankful. At last, she put her hand in his and said, softly, my Lord. 'I will tell you what I learned'. 'Tell me,' he answered gently.
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'First', said she, '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 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 Acceptance With Joy'. He nodded without speaking. And she went on.
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'Then I learned that I must bear all the others were allowed to do against me and to forgive with no trace of bitterness. And to say to thee - Behold me, I am Bearing With Love that I may receive power to bring good out of this evil.'
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Again, he nodded, and she smiled still more sweetly and happily. 'The third thing that I learned was that you, my Lord 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 truly be said, There is none that walks with such a queenly ease nor with 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.'.
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Then she looked up into his face and for a little time could say no more.But at last, she added, 'My Lord. I cannot tell you how greatly I want to regard others in the same way.' A very lovely smile broke out on his face at that.
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But he still said nothing, only nodded for the third time and waited for her to continue. 'The fourth thing,' said she with a radiant face, 'was really the first I learned up here. Every circumstance in life, no matter how crooked and distorted and ugly it appears to be, if it is reacted to in love and forgiveness and obedience to you, to your will, it can be transformed. Therefore, I begin to think, my Lord, you purposely allow us to be brought into contact with the bad and evil things that you want changed.
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Perhaps that is the very reason why we 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.
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Not simply binding so that 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 Hind's feet. Now you are able to run sleeping on the mountains and able to follow me where 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.
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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 Hind's feet again for I am going to lead you to another part of the mountain. Off he went leaping on the mountains and skipping on the hills with Grace and Glory following close behind, and the beautiful figures of Peace and Joy springing at her side."
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Life, my lovely ladies, is a Path. You are a heart with stories of fear in your past. You have come through so much, so many hills and valleys. But now you are at a place - you have the maturity. You have the years that can show you where the jewels are. The jewels of love that you have been given. The jewels of kindness, of wisdom, of strengths that life has made of you.
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And you are at a place where you can discover your calling if you haven't already. You can find where it is that you can use the jewels that you have been given, the Hind's feet to show you how to leap and fly. To show you how to overcome what is hard and difficult and evil in this world. To overcome that with the good that you can bring with your jewels of wisdom, of comfort, of strength and hope for those who have received it.
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To show you how you can bring the jewels of wisdom, of comfort, of strength and hope to those who need it. That's the purpose of this last phase of life. Who are you? What are you called to do to bring - just by being in this world? This is the last Episode of season one of S.O.F.T. and Strong. In season two, starting in the very next episode, you are going to begin to discover the 'you' that exists.
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The 'you' that is the result of the path you've walked. The 'you' that has a calling that is pressing on your heart. You are going to discover how to become the person that can follow that calling, how to be the person, how to take the steps to actually bring that dream into a reality.
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Love is greater than fear. Focusing there, I'm sure you would agree, is a whole lot better and a lot more fulfilling than just focusing on getting old, settling into all the things that we typically think aging is associated with. Yes, those things will be there, but you know what, when you change your focus to finding the jewels, to being all that you are meant to be, it totally transforms your life.
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So I'm looking forward to sharing the next phase of this journey with you in Season Two. Please, if you haven't already subscribed to the podcast so that, you know, when the new episodes come out, and if you can leave me just a short review, because that raises the podcast in the ranks so that more women will see it. More women will be aware that we all are the Brave Heart Girls Club. We are women who are refusing to get old. We are women who encourage each other to walk this path with purpose right to the end. Thank you so much for being with me for listening in this podcast. And I will talk to you in the next episode.