Category: Sister Judy (Page 245 of 271)

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

Today’s devotions is about the road to freedom and the importance of staying on that road. Sometimes we seem to think we are losing ground and going backwards and our healing is sporadic. But when we experience a set back or regress, all is not lost. We don’t start all over again. Instead what we have gained we have gained. 
Sometimes things build up and we feel like we are right back where we started. But instead, it is like we are pulled off the road, and return to the place where we left it, not to where we started.  It is not important to dwell on the moments we feel pulled away from our progress, but we must try to return home, to the solid place within us immediately. Otherwise we connect with similar moments and together they become powerful enough to pull us far away from the road. We must remain alert to the distractions and return to the road when we are on the shoulder rather than when we are pulled all the way into a nearby swamp.  IN everything, let us keep trusting that God is with us and has given us companions on the journey. Let us return to the road of freedom each time we get pulled off.

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

Today’s devotion is on loneliness and the importance of trying to find the source of this feeling. I think Henri dealt with this a lot in his life.  We are all inclined to either run away from our loneliness or to dwell in it. If we run away it doesn’t diminish; we simply force if out of our minds temporarily.  When we start dwelling on it, our feelings only become stronger and we can slip into depression. Our spiritual task is to find the source which is not always easy to do as we can’t do it with our minds. It is a work of the heart and with our heart we can search for that place without fear.  As we discover where these feelings emerge from, it will lose some of its power over us. The pain of our loneliness might be rooted in our deepest vocation or our call to live completely for God.  When we experience in our innermost being the truth of our loneliness, we can find that this loneliness is not just tolerable but may be even fruitful. It can lead us to an even deeper knowledge of God’s love.

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

Today’s devotion is about telling our story and it is important that we look at the pains of our past realizing that it has led us to our new life now. But if the new life is not fully ours, then our memories will continue to cause us pain. For when  we keep reliving painful events of the past, we can feel victimized by them.   But we can instead tell our story from the place where it no longer dominates us and causes us pain.  We can speak about it with a certain distance and see it as the way to our present freedom. We will then find that the pain has left and we don’t have to go back and relive it or depend on our past to identify ourselves.  We don’t need to tell our stories compulsively and urgently to keep returning to our past hurts. But instead they can lose their weight and be remembered as God’s way of making us more compassionate and understanding towards others

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

When we come to live in our bodies as a true expression of who we are, we can be present to others. As our body is an integral part of ourselves, we can trust it and listen to its language. That gives us confidence to be free to claim our unique place in life as God’s gift to us. It will also help us to discern with our whole being the value of other people’s experiences and appreciate them without desiring to imitate them.  We won’t need to compare but walk our own unique way, not in isolation but with the awareness that we don’t have to worry whether others are pleased or not. A new spirituality is being born in us and we can trust that it will find shape within us. We may admire other spiritualities practiced by people we admire but they may not fit our unique call. Their experiences do not have to match our own. But we can trust our own unique vocation and allow it to grow deeper and stronger so it can blossom and bless others.  Look at Rembrandt and Gogh. They trusted their vocations and did not allow anyone to lead them astray. They didn’t bend over backwards to please their friends but left humanity with gifts that can heal the minds and hearts of many generations.  Let us trust that we have a unique vocation that is worth claiming and living out faithfully.

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

Today’s devotional is on acknowledging our powerlessness. We all have those places in our lives that we are powerless. We cannot heal ourselves and every time we try we get discouraged. But we have to start simply by admitting that we can’t cure ourselves in order for God to heal us. That means surrendering to God’s action in us and letting go of our desire to control and that takes trust. The more we relinquish our need to maintain power the more we will get in touch with Him who has the power to heal and guide us. As we get in touch with that divine power, it becomes easier to confess to ourselves and others our basic powerlessness. If we run from where much we have received we are though and distract ourselves, we can’t let ourselves be healed.  Let us picture ourselves as a seed that flourishes by staying in the ground in which it is sown. When we dig up the seed to check if it is growing, it will never bear fruit.  Instead we need to stay there and trust that the soil contains everything we need to grow. This growth takes place even when we don’t feel it. Let us be quiet, acknowledge our powerlessness, and have faith that one day we will know how.

Devotions by Henri Nouwen , The Inner Voice of Love

Today’s devotion is on how to live through pain we may have in our lives.  It could be the pain of not receiving what we need most, a place of emptiness where we feel the absence of love, etc. It is hard back to go back to that place where we are confronted with our wounds and our powerlessness to heal ourselves. We must go to that place of our pain, but only after we have gained some new ground.,,that is when  we begin to know that our emptiness is not the final experience but beyond it is a place where we are being held in love.   As  we are able to trust we can go into the place of our pain with the knowledge in our heart that we have already found the new place and tasted of its fruits. The more roots we have in the new place, the more we can mourn the loss of the old place and let go of the pain that lies there.  We can’t mourn the loss of something that has not died. Still, the old pains, attachments and desires that once meant so much to us need to be buried.  We need to weep over our lost pains to that they can gradually leave us and we can become free to fully live in the new place.

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

To live a disciplined life is to live in such a way that we only want to be where God is with us. The more deeply we live our spiritual life, the easier it will be to discern the difference between living with God and living without God.  Our great challenge is faithfulness, which must be lived in the choices we make every moment. When we are find ourselves eating, working, playing, speaking or writing no longer for His glory, then we should stop because we are no longer living for the glory of God. The main question should always be whether something is lived with or without God. We have our own inner knowledge to answer that question. When we do something that comes from our need for acceptance, affection and affirmation, and every time we do something that makes these needs grow, we know that we are not with God. These needs won’t be satisfied and will only get bigger. But every time we do something for the glory of God, we will know His peace in our hearts and find rest there. IT is He who holds us safe.

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

Henri speaks of entering the new country where the Lord dwells there in greater intimacy. It’s like we reach a point in our lives where we are not truly at peace in our old country any more.  He struggled, just as we do, when we leave the old country that has become so familiar. It requires the death of all that is precious to us: influence, success, affection, praise, etc.  It is where we have spent most of our days.  We are asked to trust but it is hard since we have to go to the new country naked and vulnerable. He said it seems that we cross and recross the border and for a time feel joy in the new country. But then fear comes and we long again for what we left behind. But when we go back to the old we find it has lost its charm. May we risk a few more steps in to the new country, trusting that we will feel more comfortable and be willing to stay longer.

Devotions from Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love

God’s love is permanent and we can claim that love as a gift from Him and also give that love to others. When others stop loving us, we don’t have to stop loving them. Maybe on a human level, changes might be necessary, but on the level of the divine, we can remain faithful to this love. Some day we can offer to give gratuitous love that doesn’t ask for anything in return. We can also be free to receive that gratuitous love ourselves.  Often love is offered to us, but we don’t recognize it. We may discard it if we are fixed on receiving it from the same person to whom we gave it.  The paradox of love is that just when we claim ourselves as God’s beloved child, have set boundaries to our love, and contained our needs, we begin to grow into the freedom to give this love without asking for any return.

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

Henri talks about setting boundaries to our love. When people show us their boundaries by saying they can’t do something for us, we may feel rejected.  We would rather they showed us  love, care, and giving without limit. But we also can’t keep giving to people when they ask for more and more of us or it will leave us feeling exhausted, used, and manipulated. We have to set our own boundaries so we can acknowledge, respect, and even be grateful for the boundaries of others. “The great task is to claim yourself for yourself, so that you can contain your needs within the boundaries of your self and hold them in the presence of those you love. True mutuality in love requires people who possess themselves and who can give to each other while holding on to their own identities.”  By setting our own boundaries to our love, we can give more effectively and be more self-contained with our own needs.