We often live as if our happiness depended on having. But I don’t know anyone who is really happy because of what he or she has. True joy, happiness, and inner peace come from the giving of ourselves to others. A happy life is a life for others. That truth, however, is usually discovered when we are confronted with our brokenness.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Henri J.M. Nouwen Quotes

Poverty, pain, struggle, anguish, agony, and even inner darkness may continue to be part of our experience. They may even be God’s way of purifying us. But life is no longer boring, resentful, depressing, or lonely because we have come to know that everything that happens is part of our way to the Father.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

There is a deep hole in your being, like an abyss. You will never succeed in filling that hole, because your needs are inexhaustible. You have to work around it so that gradually the abyss closes. Since the hole is so enormous and your anguish so deep, you will always be tempted to flee from it. There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Our primary task in solitude, therefore, is not to pay undue attention to the many faces which assail us, but to keep the eyes of our mind and heart on him who is our divine savior.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

I wonder if the greatest temptation is self-rejection. Could it be that beneath all the lures to greed, lust, and success rests a great fear of never being enough or not being lovable?

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Our preoccupations prevent our having new experiences and keep us hanging on to the familiar ways.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

When we think about the people who have given us hope and have increased the strength of our soul, we might discover that they were not the advice givers, warners or moralists, but the few who were able to articulate in words and actions the human condition in which we participate and who encouraged us to face the realities of life.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: “These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting embrace.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

We seem to have a fear of empty spaces. The philosopher Spinoza called this a horror vacui. We want to fill up what is empty. Our lives stay very full. And when we are not blinded by busyness, we fill our inner space with guilt about things of the past or worries about things to come.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Compassion is the fruit of solitude and the basis of all ministry.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Friendship and love cannot develop in the form of an anxious clinging to each other.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

The story of the prodigal son is the story of a God who goes searching for me and who doesn’t rest until he has found me.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

It is quite understandable that you are afraid of this place. You have so little knowledge of it. You have caught glimpses of it, you have even been there at times, but for most of your life you have dwelt among your emotions, passions, and feelings and searched in them for inner peace and joy.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

God is always active in our lives. He always calls, he always asks us to take up our crosses and follow him. But do we see, feel, and recognize God’s call, or do we keep waiting for that illusory moment when it will really happen? Displacement is not primarily something to do or to accomplish but something to recognize.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

I realized that healing begins with our taking our pain out of its diabolic isolation and seeing that whatever we suffer, we suffer it in communion with all of humanity, and yes, all of creation.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

A true disciple of Jesus will always go to where people are feeling weak, broken, sick, in pain, poor, lonely, forgotten, anxious, and lost.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Boredom, resentment, and depression are all sentiments of disconnectedness. They present life to us as a broken connection. They give us a sense of not-belonging. In interpersonal relations, this disconnectedness is experienced as loneliness. When we are lonely we perceive ourselves as isolated individuals surrounded, perhaps, by many people, but not really part of any supporting or nurturing community.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

A complainer is hard to live with, and very few people know how to respond to the complaints made by a self-rejecting person. The tragedy is that, often, the complaint, once expressed, leads to that which is most feared: further rejection.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Your life, my life, is given graciously by God. Our lives are not problems to be solved but journeys to be taken.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

It is not easy for us, busy people, to truly receive a blessing. Perhaps the fact that few people offer a real blessing is the sad result of the absence of people who are willing and able to receive such a blessing. It has become extremely difficult for us to stop, listen, pay attention, and receive gracefully what is offered to us.

— Henri J.M. Nouwen
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