Quote of the Day
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 your silence than to talk about them. The choice you face constantly is whether you are taking your hurts 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 into your heart. Then you can live them through and discover that they will not destroy you. Your heart is greater than your wounds.
Understanding your wounds can only be healing when that understanding is put at the service of your heart. Going to your heart with your wounds is not easy; it demands letting go of many questions. You want to know: “Why was I wounded? When? How? By whom?” You believe that the answers to these questions will bring relief. But at best they only offer you a little distance from your pain. You have to let go of the need to stay in control of your pain and trust in the healing power of your heart. There your hurts can find a safe place to be received, and once they have been received, they lose their power to inflict damage and become fruitful soil for new life.
Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom
Tags: Christian Life
August 3rd, 2012 at 12:24 pm
There is such wisdom in this quote from Henri Nouwen. Reading this with my head I wanted to say ‘but understanding the causes of pain, thinking through the hurt is essential for healing’. Then reading it again with my heart and feeling some of my own hurtful experiences I want to say ‘yes, unless I go to the heart of the pain and feel it again I cannot be healed’. I love the sentence ‘Understanding your wounds can only be healing when that understanding is put at the service of your heart’.
August 4th, 2012 at 5:57 am
What about hurt you inflicted on loved ones? And cannot deal with it