Nuggets of Wisdom

"Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.
And what you want to give me is love,
unconditional, everlasting love.
Amen."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life)

"A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

"Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen (Finding My Way Home)

"Waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a movement from something to something more."

— Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Path of Waiting)

"I have found it very important in my own life to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen for me."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen (Finding My Way Home)

"Here we realize how our wishes tend to be connected with our fears, and fear, of course, prevents us from allowing time in our lives for open-ended waiting. For this reason, a lot of our waiting is not open-ended. Instead, our waiting is a way of controlling the future."

— Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Path of Waiting)

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

"Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

"When the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Wounded Healer)

"People who read your ideas tend to think that your writings reflect your life."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen