Opening
These closing chapters bring Much-Afraid to the brink of death and the heights of joy. Through surrender at an altar, a hidden surgery of the heart, and a radiant awakening, she becomes Grace and Glory—and chooses to descend with the King, carrying living water back to the valley.
What Happens
Chapter 16: The Grave on the Mountains
The path brings Much-Afraid with Sorrow and Suffering to a misted abyss—the appointed place. Too weak to stand, she leans on her companions and together they leap into the chasm. They land unharmed in a canyon before a stone altar. She calls for the Shepherd, but he does not answer. Fear of abandonment flickers—echoing Bitterness’s taunt—yet no despair rises. Only a steady resolve remains: to do his will at any cost, beyond the reach of enemies like Pride.
She tries to tear out the plant of human love from her heart, but its roots are fused with her life. Sorrow and Suffering cannot help her. A solemn Priest steps from behind the altar and offers to remove it. Dreading her own resistance, she asks to be bound. She vows her final allegiance—“where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried”—and repeats the Shepherd’s promise from Habakkuk. With a hand “like steel,” the Priest reaches into her heart, rips out the “Longing-to-be-loved,” declares it ripe, and casts it upon the altar. Fire consumes it. Peace floods her. “It is finished,” she whispers, and sleeps.
Chapter 17: Healing
She wakes in a sun-warmed cave, swathed in spikenard, frankincense, and myrrh. There is no wound on her chest. The canyon—once a grave—now shimmers like Eden. From beneath the altar bursts a river “clear as crystal,” pouring down into the waterfall she had seen from below, the embodied work of Spiritual Transformation and Sanctification.
Alone, she steps into the icy current, and as she emerges, she sees her feet: straight, strong, beautiful. Immersing fully, she looks into a still pool—her twisted mouth is gone; her face is childlike and whole. She spends the day resting, bathing, and eating wild berries as well-being replaces all former pain.
Chapter 18: The High Places
At dawn on the third day, a jubilant summons rings from above. A hart and a hind appear, spring onto the altar, and climb the sheer wall. She follows, her new feet answering with ecstatic precision. At the summit she finds the Shepherd, now revealed as the King, radiant in glory. Laughing, he calls, “You—with the hinds’ feet—jump over here.” She lands beside him on the highest peak.
“Your night of weeping is over,” he declares, and gives her a new name: Grace and Glory. When she explains that the flower of Love was burned, he reveals the truth: the plant removed was only her human “Longing-to-be-loved.” The true Love—planted as a thorn-seed in the Valley of Humiliation—now blossoms in her heart. She understands at last: the Priest was the King. She kisses his scarred hands. He gathers her stones of remembrance, now transformed into jewels, and sets them in a golden circlet—a crown forged from trial.
Chapter 19: The Return of the Companions
The King promises handmaidens for Grace and Glory. She longs for Sorrow and Suffering—and before she speaks, two radiant figures draw near, faces bright with mirth. Their familiar gesture tells her before their words: it is Sorrow and Suffering, utterly changed.
They announce their new names—Joy and Peace. As she is no longer Much-Afraid, neither are they what they were. Everything that reaches the High Places is transformed. They explain that they could not enter Love’s Kingdom alone; only by her continual acceptance—placing her hand in theirs again and again—could they become what they are now. Their shared pain becomes shared delight.
Chapter 20: The Work of Love
Grace and Glory, with Joy and Peace, explores the “beginners’ slopes” of the Kingdom. From this height she sees what she could not in the valley: truth must be grown into, not merely read. She delights in leaping with the King and names four lessons that shape her: to accept God’s will with joy, to bear wrong with love, to see others as God sees them, and to turn evil into good through love. The King affirms these as the secret of her transformation.
He leads them to look down into the Valley of Humiliation. She sees her old home and the dwellings of her kin and foes—including Craven Fear—and feels only compassion. The King notes their recent sorrows; suffering has softened them. Yet they will not hear him directly; he needs a voice. Grace and Glory gladly volunteers to descend with Joy and Peace. Now she understands the waterfall: it is the glad torrent of transformed lives, rushing from the heights to water the barren valleys. Singing of self-giving love, the King leads them down.
Character Development
The journey completes its arc: surrender births healing, healing unveils identity, and identity issues in mission. Every relationship is transfigured by love.
- Much-Afraid → Grace and Glory: Moves from total surrender at the altar to resurrection wholeness. Her crookedness—feet, mouth, name—becomes strength, clarity, and honor. Crowned with her own transformed trials, she shifts from receiving love to offering it, choosing to return to the valley in compassion.
- Sorrow and Suffering → Joy and Peace: Their change depends on her acceptance. By repeatedly taking their hands, she carries them with her into transformation. Pain becomes the seedbed of joy, endurance ripens into peace.
- The Shepherd → the King / the Priest: Guide, surgeon, and sovereign are one. He leads, wounds to heal, and crowns. His hidden scars underpin her wholeness, and his joy seals her new name.
Themes & Symbols
Pain as the passage to holiness: These chapters embody transformative surrender. The altar scene makes clear that sanctification is not self-improvement but divine surgery—self-will yields so true Love can live. Resurrection follows burial; wholeness follows wounding.
Love purified by sacrifice: The false plant—needy “Longing-to-be-loved”—must die so Love that gives can bloom. From that very altar, the river flows, insisting that life comes from self-offering. Joy and Peace stand as living proofs that embraced suffering becomes glory.
- The Grave/Canyon: Descent before rising; a death-space where enemies cannot follow.
- The Altar: The hinge of the story; self-will is bound and offered, and fire answers.
- The River of Life: Healing and regeneration flowing from sacrifice; the Spirit’s current.
- The Crown of Jewels: Remembered pains made beautiful; trials set as honor.
- The Waterfall: Love rushing downward; transformed lives poured out for others.
Key Quotes
“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.”
Her Ruth-like vow seals literal self-surrender. By choosing burial with the Shepherd’s will, she makes space for resurrection life to begin.
“It is finished.”
Her echo of the Passion marks the end of self-claim. The words close one life and open another, turning the altar into the birthplace of peace.
“You—with the hinds’ feet—jump over here.”
The King’s playful command celebrates her newfound capacity. What was once stumbling now becomes intimacy and freedom in his presence.
“Your night of weeping is over.”
This declaration names the pivot from trial to triumph. Tears have done their work; joy now defines her identity as Grace and Glory.
“Everything that reaches the High Places is transformed.”
The companions’ revelation states the book’s thesis: nothing ascends unchanged. Acceptance is the conduit by which pain becomes Joy and Peace.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters fulfill the Shepherd’s early promises from the Preface: hinds’ feet, the High Places, a new name. But the climax redirects the goal. The heights are not an escape but an equipping. The crown is for descent. Grace and Glory embodies the book’s final claim: true love does not stay on the summit; it pours itself out like the waterfall, returning to barren places so others may live.