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Your life is not going to be easy, and it should not be easy. It ought to be hard. It ought to be radical; it ought to be restless; it ought to lead you to places you’d rather not go.

Henri Nouwen

It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared.
HENRI NOUWEN

Discover Effort Gift Possession Result Share Solitude Worth
The only feelings that do not heal are the ones you hide.
HENRI NOUWEN

Feeling Healing Hide Oneself
Forgiveness changes the way we remember.
HENRI NOUWEN

Change Forgiveness Remember Way
Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.
HENRI NOUWEN

Darkness Desperate Hope Live
If I were to let my life be taken over by what is urgent, I might very well never get around to what is essential.
HENRI NOUWEN

Essential Life Myself
In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
HENRI NOUWEN

Life Ourselves Source Wound
We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help.
HENRI NOUWEN

Healing Health Help Offering Reach
I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.
HENRI NOUWEN

Myself Search Son Time
The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds but how can we put our woundedness in service to others.
HENRI NOUWEN

Healing Hide Question Service Wound
Our life is a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment.
HENRI NOUWEN

Joy Kiss Life Moments Ourselves Sadness Time
Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.
HENRI NOUWEN

Day Joy Simplicity
Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.
HENRI NOUWEN

Alive Community Growth Heart Oneself Quality
Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.
HENRI NOUWEN

Close Distance Lose Silence Word
Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something.
HENRI NOUWEN

God Himself Listening Open Prayer
My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.
HENRI NOUWEN

Complain Discover Interrupt Life Myself Work
The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Life Popularity Power Rejection Success Trap

Your life is not going to be easy, and it should not be easy. It ought to be hard. It ought to be radical; it ought to be restless; it ought to lead you to places you’d rather not go.

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Your life is not going to be easy, and it should not be easy. It ought to be hard. It ought to be radical; it ought to be restless; it ought to lead you to places you’d rather not go.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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