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 Nouwen
~Henri Nouwen
You have been on my heart and mind all morning! I love your blog and the best part is that it "reads" just like you........
ReplyDeleteEternal God, You see the end from the beginning. You go with me through every agony and defeat, every thrill and victory. Thank You, Lord.
(This was the prayer at the end of today's A Positive Minute. I thought it was fitting!
I grew up in the First Christian Church circle of Indiana. I love the 2 degrees of seperation within the fellowship. Several years ago I started a list of people I met or wanted to meet. I have loved seeing how He criscrosses lives of people. I began thanking God for the time that He joins my journey with another's. As i have done this, I have been more and more able to observe and be thankful for the specifics of the experiences of the joined journeies. (shared greif, laughter, learning, etc.) This process has convinced me more and more that I do not need to know how many children you have, what you do for a living, or what your favorite color is to become "Friends". I need to study, pray, contemplate scriture and the life as a disciple with another. I need and want to see the "One God, One Spirit, One Truth". I believe when we join with another in study, prayer, contemplation and the 'One God, One Spirit, One Truth' is revealed; it is within these relationships we find those to whom Henri refers to as, people who mean the most to us. These people in these relationships are silent, unknowing, and powerless because the "One God, One Spirit, One Truth" to which they have submitted has quietd them. They are our "friend who cares" because the one we are truely seeing in those moments, is Christ. It is Christ through them that is our friend who cares.
ReplyDeleteI thank God for the time that he joins the journey of me and another and reveals himself. I thank God for the times through study, prayer, adn contemplation that I or another submitts to the One God, One Spirit, One Truth and celebrate our powerlessness. The celebration of this kind of powerlessness with another is yet another way I am refreshed in my sight of The Hope that is Jesus Christ.
TOday, I want to thank God for the refrshment He has given me through some joined journies over the last three years. What a wild last three years! My cup runneth over.