The journey from teaching about love to allowing myself to be loved proved much longer than I realised.
Interpretation
Realizing the difference between understanding love and actually experiencing it can take a long time.
This quote by Henri Nouwen reflects the idea that it's one thing to learn about love in an intellectual or theoretical sense, but itβs an entirely different challenge to open oneself up to love and vulnerability. The journey from merely teaching or understanding love to truly embodying it and welcoming it into oneβs life can be a complex and often lengthy process, filled with personal growth and self-discovery.
In practice
During a relationship seminar, one might use this quote to illustrate the emotional hurdles people face.
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.
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.
Suffering invites us to place our hurts in larger hands. In Christ we see God suffering β for us. And calling us to share in Godβs 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.
There are lovers content with longing. Iβm not one of them.
To love what you do and feel that it matters - how could anything be more fun?
And enough for me that when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you called my name.
To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.
Today I forgive all those who have ever offended me. I give my love to all thirsty hearts, both to those who love me and to those who do not love me.
An honest kiss, a little kindness, everyone deserves that much, however big or small.
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