For a long time, I imagined the “high places” as mountaintops—panoramic, sunlit, victorious. The kind of high place you pose on after the climb. But life has taught me otherwise. The high places are not scenic overlooks. They are the narrow, wind-scraped ridges where one misstep means falling. They are the altitudes of grief, of uncertainty, of responsibility. The places where the air is thin and every breath requires effort.
So if you find yourself in a high place today—not by ambition, but by necessity—look down at your feet. Notice how you haven’t fallen yet. That is not luck. That is the Maker of deer and of you, shaping your soles to the stone mid-stride.
And the deer? The deer does not conquer the mountain. It belongs to the mountain. pies de ciervas en los lugares altos - fav
Because I have been there. Standing on a ledge I never asked for—a diagnosis, a loss, a broken dream—looking down at the drop and feeling my own humanity tremble. And in that tremor, realizing: I am still standing. Not because I have strong hands, but because something beneath me holds. A hidden architecture of grace. Hooves that find purchase on stone that should have sent me sliding.
That is the gift. Not a removal of the cliff, but the creation of a foot that fits the fracture. For a long time, I imagined the “high
A deer’s foot is not a lion’s paw (raw power) or an eagle’s talon (distance). It is split. Two delicate, splayed toes that can grip crumbling rock. A deer’s strength is not in crushing its enemy, but in balance. It lands on the steepest slope and does not slip—not because the slope is safe, but because its feet were made for exactly that impossible angle.
And that, truly, is my favorite thing: that the same God who sets the wild deer on the crag says to you, “Here. Walk here. I made your feet for this.” For the leader of the choir. On stringed instruments. —Adapted from Habakkuk 3:19 The high places are not scenic overlooks
The heights will never be easy. But they can be home for the creature with the right feet.