Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Your Heart Is Greater

75 years ago today one of my favourite authors, Henri Nouwen, was born. This past week I read a book by Michael Ford called Wounded Prophet which takes an intimate look at Nouwen's life. Different pieces from his books are quoted throughout Ford's book. Below is one from The Inner Voice Of Love that spoke to me.
"You have been wounded in many ways. The more you open yourself to being healed, the more you will discover how deep your wounds are...The great challenge is living your wounds through instead of thinking 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 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. Your heart is greater than your wounds."

11 comments:

gracie said...

Nouwen is my favourite author... and The Inner Voice of Love helped me through a very difficult time. I have recommended it to so many friends struggling with dependencies.

thank you, hope, for all that you share here. This quote is another example of hope... "Your heart is greater than your wounds."

Anonymous said...

Wow.... I mean, Wow....

ukok said...

better to feel your wounds deeply than to understand them

Oh my, I need to read this book yesterday!

owenswain said...

We are doing inventory at the store and last week I marked a hard cover copy of this book down by 25% - it's first reduction. My problem is to restrain myself from buying them all as they go on sale. I am supposed to be earning a salary not spending it...but, uh, well...if it's still on the table Friday I might "have" to pick it up. I do like Nouwen...

Anonymous said...

"Your heart is greater than your wounds."

I like this line.

Gerry

bobbie said...

thank you for this hope. i really needed it this morning!

daisymarie said...

whoa! that's powerful. as i started reading i kept thinking: head and heart...then the thought rang through about letting my wounds enter my silence...that's hard for an extravert to do...and quite the necessary challenge.

~pen~ said...

very powerful stuff.

Sue said...

'Your heart is greater than your wounds.' that's good to remember when I feel sometimes that my heart is diminished by my wounds.

Curious Servant said...

Some wounds never seem to heal... but they do seem to lend a certain strength to other tests, trials.

Thanks for sharing that snippet, Hope.

Hellen said...
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