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If you feel loved, you can do a thousand things. If you feel rejected, everything becomes a problem.

Henri Nouwen

Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.
HENRI NOUWEN

Darkness Desperate Hope Live
Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.
HENRI NOUWEN

Direction Fear Generosity Love Time
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
Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life…all of our life.
HENRI NOUWEN

Give Up Humanity Kiss Life Love Ourselves Smile Word
Your heart is greater than your wounds.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Heart Wound Yourself
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.
HENRI NOUWEN

Angry Blame Choice Hate Live Loss Time Wide
Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.
HENRI NOUWEN

Day Hope Ourselves Sun Talk True Walk
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.
HENRI NOUWEN

Alone Compassionate Courage God Help People See Sight
You don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.
HENRI NOUWEN

Kind Live Thinking Way Yourself
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.
HENRI NOUWEN

Afraid God Guide Hands Love See Trust
Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.
HENRI NOUWEN

Fake Illusion Solitude Transformation
The church is not an institution forcing us to follow rules but a community inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at its table.
HENRI NOUWEN

Community Force Hungry Institution Ourselves Rule
What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.
HENRI NOUWEN

Ability Heart Human Mindset Ourselves Thinking
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
I trust in you, Lord, but keep helping me in my moments of distrust and doubt.
HENRI NOUWEN

Doubt Help Moments Myself Trust
Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.
HENRI NOUWEN

Change Offering People Space
In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.
HENRI NOUWEN

Division Healing Live Love Privilege Rival World Wound
We are called to be fruitful – not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.
HENRI NOUWEN

Accomplishment Admission Ourselves Production Success Vulnerable Weakness
Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him.
HENRI NOUWEN

Himself Impossible Listening Live Serious Solitude Spiritual
The only feelings that do not heal are the ones you hide.
HENRI NOUWEN

Feeling Healing Hide Oneself
The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Life Popularity Power Rejection Success Trap
I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.
HENRI NOUWEN

Community Feeling Solitude Strong
Forgiveness changes the way we remember.
HENRI NOUWEN

Change Forgiveness Remember Way
Pay attention to the people God puts in your path if you want to discern what God is up to in your life.
HENRI NOUWEN

Attention God Life Path Pay Yourself
You have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is prayer – listening to the voice of the one who calls you “the beloved.”
HENRI NOUWEN

Call Listening Prayer Voice Yourself
Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
HENRI NOUWEN

Ground Hide Stand Treasure Trust
This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love.
HENRI NOUWEN

Generosity Life Love Opportunity Time

If you feel loved, you can do a thousand things. If you feel rejected, everything becomes a problem.

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If you feel loved, you can do a thousand things. If you feel rejected, everything becomes a problem.

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