Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.
HENRI NOUWENYour heart is greater than your wounds.
More Henri Nouwen Quotes
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Dare to love and to be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as those whom God has given you to love.
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The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds but how can we put our woundedness in service to others.
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God, help me to see others not as enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.
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Once we deeply trust that we ourselves are precious in God’s eyes, we are able to recognize the preciousness of others and their unique places in God’s heart.
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Every time there are losses, there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.
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For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved.
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Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.
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Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something.
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The fruits of your labors may be reaped two generations from now. Trust, even when you don’t see the results.
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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.
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Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.
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Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
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Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.
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Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.
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We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help.
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The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
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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.
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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.
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Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.
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Keep a space where God can let something totally new take place.
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Your heart is greater than your wounds.
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Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.
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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.
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This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love.
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You don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.
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Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.
HENRI NOUWEN