FR RONALD ROLHEISER

Take your pain to heart and strength will follow

WRITING in his journal during a time of bitter heartbreak, Henri Nouwen wrote these words: “The great challenge is living your wounds through instead of thinking them through. It is better to cry than to worry, better to feel your wounds than to understand them, better to let them enter into your silence than to talk about them. The choice you face constantly is whether you are taking your wounds to your head or your heart.”

Part of us understands exactly what he is saying here, even as another part of us congenitally resists his advice. There’s a place in us that doesn’t want to cry, doesn’t want to feel our hurt, doesn’t want to take our pain to a place of silence, and doesn’t want to take our wounds to our heart.

And so instead, in our heartaches and wounds, we grow anxious and obsessive, we struggle to understand, we talk endlessly to others, and we try to sort things out with our heads rather than letting ourselves simply feel them with our hearts.

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