You must expect setbacks and regressions. Don't say to yourself "All is lost. I have to start all over again." This is not true. What you have gained you have gained....When you return to the the road, you return to the place where you left it, not to where you started.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
..part of your struggle is to set boundaries to your own love. Only when you are able to set your own boundaries will you be able to acknowledge, respect and even be grateful for the boundaries of others.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
Do you own your pain;
As long as you do not own your pain—that is, integrate your pain into your way of being in the world—the danger exists that you will use the other to seek healing for yourself
When you speak to others about your pain without fully owning it, you expect something from them that they cannot give...
you will feel frustrated, and those you wanted to help will feel confused...
those you wanted to help will feel confused, disappointed, or even further burdened.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
They speak about their own limitations. They confess their poverty in the face of your needs and desires.
They do not say that you are bad, ugly, or despicable. They say only that you are asking for something they cannot give
they need to get some distance from you to survive emotionally
The sadness is that you perceive their necessary withdrawal as a rejection of you
Because where God wants you to be, God holds you safe and gives you peace, even when there is pain.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
You can only seek God when you have already found God. The desire for God’s unconditional love is the fruit of having been touched by that love.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
Exhaustion, burnout, and depression are not signs that you are doing God’s will
God is gentle and loving. God desires to give you a deep sense of safety in God’s love.
Once you have allowed yourself to experience that love fully, you will be better able to discern who you are being sent to in God’s name.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
There is within you a lamb and a lion. Spiritual maturity is the ability to let lamb and lion lie down together.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
“Every time you do something that comes from your needs for acceptance, affirmation, or affection, and every time you do something that makes these needs grow, you know that you are not with God. These needs will never be satisfied; they will only increase when you yield to them.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
Every time you close another door—be it ✔️the door of immediate satisfaction,
✔️the door of distracting entertainment,
✔️the door of busyness,
✔️the door of guilt and worry, or
✔️the door of self-rejection—you commit yourself to go deeper into your heart and thus deeper into the heart of God.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
I have also learned to catch the darkness early, not to allow sadness to grow into depression or let a sense of being rejected develop into a feeling of abandonment.
Even in the renewed and deepened friendship, I feel the freedom to point to the little clouds and ask for help in letting them pass by.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
Not being welcome is your greatest fear.
fear of not being welcome in this life
fear of not being welcome in the life after this
the deep-seated fear that it would have been better if you had not lived.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
You have an idea what the new country looks like. Still, you are very much at home, although not truly at peace, in the old country
You have spent most of your days there.
Even though you know that you have not found there what your heart most desires, you remain quite attached to it. It has become part of your very bones.
you have come to realize that you must leave it
what helped and guided you in the old country no longer works
what else do you have to go by
You are being asked to trust that you will find what you need in the new country.
That requires the death of what has become precious to you: influence, success, yes, even affection and praise.
Trust is so hard, since you have nothing to fall back on.
The new country is where you are called to go, and the only way to go there is naked and vulnerable.
(The vulnerability of your own/others existance)
(trusting force)
trust is what is essential.
It seems that you keep crossing and recrossing the border.
For a while you experience a real joy in the new country. But then you feel afraid and start longing again for all you left behind,
you go back to the old country. To your dismay, you discover that the old country has lost its charm.
Risk a few more steps into the new country
each time you enter it, you will feel more comfortable and be able to stay longer.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
Remember, you are held safe.
You are loved.
You are in communion with God and with those whom God has sent you.
What is of God will last. It belongs to the eternal life. Choose it, and it will be yours.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
spiritual freedom often requires a fierce spiritual battle
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
a source of consolation ;
light and darkness, hope and despair, love and fear are never very far from each other.
People cannot give you what you long for in your heart
Do not (compulsively)
tell everyone your story
You will feel more vulnerable/rejected.
The more you expect from people’s response to your experience of abandonment, the more you will feel exposed to ridicule.
You have to close yourself to the outside world so you can enter your own heart /heart of God through your pain.
God will send to you the people with whom you can share your anguish, who can lead you closer to the true source of love.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
You have to acknowledge where you are and affirm that place ( reciprocation
Others is vain expectation)
be willing to live your loneliness,
your incompleteness, your lack of total incarnation fearlessly,
God will give you the people to keep showing you the truth of who you are.
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
as you keep pointing to the specifics, you will miss the full meaning of your pain.
You will deceive yourself into believing that if the people, circumstances, and events had been different, your pain would not exist. This might be partly true
Your way of being present to your community may require times of absence, prayer, writing, or solitude. These too are times for your community.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love❤️
as a child of God is the identity you have to accept
Once you have claimed it and settled in it, you can live in a world that gives you much joy as well as pain.
You can receive the praise as well as the blame that comes to you... (it is/becomes)
an opportunity for strengthening your basic identity
the identity that makes you free is anchored beyond all human praise and blame.
You belong to God,(other relationships are temporary) and it is as a child of God that you are sent into the world.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
You feel overwhelmed by distractions, fantasies, the disturbing desire to throw yourself into the world of pleasure.
you know already that you will not find there an answer to your deepest question
the answer [doesn't] lie in rehashing old events, or in guilt or shame.
All of that makes you dissipate yourself and leave the rock on which your house is built.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
Every time you reject yourself, you idealize others.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love♥️
There is a place far down that is like a turbulent river, and that place frightens you/
One day it will be quiet and peaceful
You have to keep moving, as you are doing.
Live a faithful, disciplined life, a life that gives you a sense of inner strength, a life in which you can receive more and more of the love that comes to you.
Wherever there is real love for you, take it and be strengthened by it.
As your body, heart, and mind come to know that you are loved, your weakest part will feel attracted to that love.
What has remained separated and unreachable will let itself be drawn into the love you have been able to receive.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love🤔❤️
A lot of giving and receiving has a violent quality, because the givers and receivers act more out of need than out of trust
What looks like generosity is actually manipulation, and what looks like love is really a cry for affection or support.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love🤔❤️
Those you have deeply loved become part of you
The longer you live, there will always be more people to be loved by you and to become part of your inner community.
The wider your inner community becomes, the more easily you will recognize your own brothers and sisters in the strangers around you.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
When you experience a great need for human affection
Are the circumstances surrounding you and the people you are with are truly where God wants you to be?
Whatever you are doing—watching a movie, writing a book, giving a presentation, eating, or sleeping—you have to stay in God’s presence.
you feel a great loneliness and a deep longing for human contact, you have to be extremely discerning.
Ask yourself whether this situation is truly God-given. Because where God wants you to be, God holds you safe and gives you peace, even when there is pain.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
The great task:
is to claim yourself for yourself, so that you can contain your needs within the boundaries of your self and hold them in the presence of those you love
mutuality in love requires people who possess themselves and who can give to each other while holding on to their own identities.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love💘
When you let your wounded self express itself in the form of apologies, arguments, or complaints—through which it cannot be truly heard—you will only grow frustrated and increasingly feel rejected.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
There is great pain and suffering in the world. But the pain hardest to bear is your own.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love🌹
When you speak to others about your pain without fully owning it, you expect something from them that they cannot give.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
It is quite understandable that you are afraid of this place.
You have so little knowledge of it.
You have caught glimpses of it,
(The kingdom of God the kingdom of peace and serenity)
you have even been there at times,
for most of your life you have dwelt among your emotions, passions, and feelings and searched in them for inner peace and joy.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
There is a deep hole in your being, like an abyss.
You will never succeed in filling that hole, because your needs are inexhaustible.
You have to work around (depression)
it so that gradually the abyss closes.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
Acknowledge your anguish, but do not let it pull you out of yourself.
Hold on to your ✔️chosen direction, ✔️your discipline, ✔️your prayer,
✔️ your work,
✔️your guides
trust that one day love will have conquered enough of you that even the most fearful part will allow love to cast out all fear.” 🌹
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity
You need not look at that only in a negative way.
now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you.
You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love🌸
when all those around me were assuring me they loved me, cared for me, appreciated me, yes, even admired me, I experienced myself as a useless, unloved, and despicable person.
Just when people were putting their arms around me, I saw the endless depth of my human misery and felt that there was nothing worth living for.
Just when I had found a home, I felt absolutely homeless
Just when people were thanking me for bringing them closer to God, I felt that God had abandoned me💜
It was as if the house I had finally had no floors.
The anguish completely paralyzed me. I could no longer sleep.
I cried uncontrollably for hours
I could not be reached by consoling words or arguments. I no longer had any interest in other people's problems.
... could not appreciate the beauty of music, art, or even nature
All had become darkness. Within me there was one long scream coming from a place I didn't know existed, a place full of demons.” 💕
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
To live a disciplined life is to live in such a way that you want only to be where God is with you.
The more deeply you live your spiritual life, the easier it will be to discern the difference between living with God and living without God,
it will be easier to move away from the places where God is no longer with you.
The great challenge:
faithfulness
must be lived in the choices of every moment.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
main question;
whether something is lived with or without God.
You have your own inner knowledge to answer that question.
Every time you do something that comes from your ✔️needs for acceptance, ✔️affirmation, or ✔️affection, and ✔️every time you do something that makes these needs grow, you know that you are not with God.
they will only increase (your anxiety/ depression)
when you yield to them. But every time you do something for the glory of God, you will know God’s peace in your heart and find rest there.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
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