The great challenge is living your wounds through instead ofthinking them through. It is better to cry than to worry, better to feel your wounds deeply than to understand them, better to let them enter into your silence than to talk about them. The choice you face constantly is whether you are taking your wounds to your head or to your heart. In your head you can analyze them, find their causes and consequences, and coin words to speak and write about them. But no final healing is likely to come from that source. You need to let your wounds go down to your heart. Then you can live through them and discover that they will not destroy you.
PRAYER FOR TODAY
God of wholeness and healing, I know that I am afraid of pain and acutely conscious of being harmed and hurt. Help me avoid my pattern of cause-and-effect, of rationalizing my wounds. Instead, let the soothing oil of your mercy heal my wounds; let me live through the pain and recognize that your joy is truly on the other side. Amen.
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Excerpt from The Inner Voice of Love by Henri J.M. Nouwen, published by Penguin Random House. Used with kind permission of the publisher.
Photo of Henri Nouwen by Frank Hamilton. Used with kind permission.
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