The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides in the immense sorrow that has gone before....our brokenness may appear beautiful, but our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.
Interpretation
This quote speaks about the profound joy that comes from reconciliation after sorrow and emphasizes the beauty found in compassion amidst brokenness.
Henri Nouwen's quote reflects the deep joy that can emerge from the experience of loss and subsequent reunion, particularly within the context of familial or personal relationships. The phrase highlights how our struggles and brokenness may be painful, yet they can also lead to a greater understanding of beauty, as this beauty often stems from the compassion and support we receive from others during difficult times. It suggests that the pains of the past enhance the joy of healing and rekindling connections, making those moments infinitely more precious.
In practice
This quote could be used during a family reunion to reflect on past struggles and the joy of coming together again.
The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. God loves us, not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love.
Suffering invites us to place our hurts in larger hands. In Christ we see God suffering – for us. And calling us to share in God’s suffering love for a hurting world. The small and even overpowering pains of our lives are intimately connected with the greater pains of Christ. Our daily sorrows are anchored in a greater sorrow and therefore a larger hope.
To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, welcome, to accept.
Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be. (Finding My Way Home)
Becoming the beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am, in fact, thinking of, talking about and doing from hour to hour.
The life-converting experience is not the discovery that I have choices to make that determine the way I live out my existence, but the awareness that my that my existence itself is not in the center. Once I 'know' God, that is, once I experience God's love as the love in which all my human experiences are anchored, I can desire only one thing: to be in that love.
I've always kinda been a little outcast myself, a little oddball, doin' my thing, my own way. And it's been hard for me to, to be accepted, certainly in the early years of my life.
I got along without you before I met you and I'll get along without you a long time after you're gone.
If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is tied up with mine, then let us work together.
Life is a big collaboration - and when you're tackling something that is painful and troubling and is causing you such desperate grief that you think life's not worth living - you need to reach out. To people who will reach back.
It lies in human nature that where you experience your first laughs, you also remember the age kindly.
If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?
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