Devotions from Henri Nouwen’s book, The Inner Voice of Love

Today’s devotion is about the inner pain of loving someone who is now gone from our lives. When the place where God dwells in us is connected with the place where God dwells in the other, the absence of the other person is not destructive. It will only challenge us to enter more deeply into communion with God, the source of all unity and communion among people.

 It is also possible on the other hand that the pain of absence will show us that we are out of touch with our deepest self. It may show us we need others for our inner wholeness and that we have become emotionally dependent on the other. We can see this played out if we don’t’ feel we can live if the other person is taken away.

But true love between two people puts us more in touch with our deepest self. It is a love in God.The pain we experience from the death or absence of the person we love, will call us into a deeper knowledge of God’s love.  God’s love is all we need, and it reveals to us the love of God in the other. So the God in us can speak to the God in the other. Death or absence does not end or even diminish the love of God that brought us to the other person. It calls us to take a new step into the mystery of God’s inexhaustible love. This process is painful, but the more we are stripped of the God-given support of others, the more we are called to love God for God’s sake.  God is enough!