October 27-November 2: “Stand Erect in Your Sorrow”
This week we will be covering the chapters from “Live Patiently with the “Not Yet” through to “Allow Yourself to be Fully Received” (pages 49-66). The chapters for our discussion will be “See Yourself Truthfully” (page 53), “Stay United with the Larger Body” (page 57) and “Stand Erect in Your Sorrow” (page 61). Please share your thoughts and comments. And if you have a chapter in this section that you want to comment on, please e-mail me (jackgiven@comcast.net) your comment and I will include it as we go through this thought provoking, challenging and life-enriching way of exploring The Inner Voice of Love.
Stand Erect in Your Sorrow
What is a temptation during times of struggle? What is Henri’s insight/suggestion?
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October 30th, 2008 @ 8:06 am
I learned from everyone’s reflections. Your last words, Lee, “We would not cry out to Him if we were without hope.”, echo St. Paul, who speaks of how character, perseverance, suffering and hope are all part of each other and for me, part of faith in God.Faith and love of God when there appears no earthly reason to believe. There cannot be greater love and trust in God than this. We transcend what happens to us to stand or kneel before God.
October 29th, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
All of your comments could have come from me, and I find it encouraging to know that I am not the only one who struggles with this. Last year was particularly difficult. I was in a ministry situation where I personally as well as my faith and ministry were continually belittled by my supervisor–to the point that if I truly believed all the negative things he told me about myself and if I believed the unloving portrait he painted of Christ, I would have left the Church.
I find that when I am so rejected my tendency is to physically curl up in a little ball–alone and in pain.
But that is when I need to stand erect: I am beloved of my Lord! And my eyes,ears, heart, mind need to focus on His loving face and His loving words. Psalm 3:1-3 has been a source of comfort and hope for me: “O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God. But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.”
When we cry out to God, even in anger, pain, loneliness, and depression, we are truly calling out in hope. We would not cry out to Him if we were without hope. Jesus’ peace and joy bless you, dear ones. Lee
October 28th, 2008 @ 11:28 pm
All of your comments are encouraging. They make me realize I am not alone in my struggles. I realize that this book was put into my hands to help me grow in Christ’s love for me. I have issues of trust - will He provide EVERYTHING I need. For me that includes what Henri calls community. I have been married before so I know that the answer to my loneliness is not a mate although I am seeing more as time goes by that it is not good for woman to be alone either. If I could live in the here and now and not borrow doubts, confusion, and fear from tomorrow, I would live in so much more freedom. I am in bondage to my emotions and I hate it. Sometimes I think I am disappointed with God. I am living in the land of regrets. Choices made out of my own brokenness. I always believed that He would restore what the locust destroyed, yet I don’t see Him doing it. Loneliness is such a stronghold in my life right now and I thank God that Henri was honest enough to write about his own struggles emotionally in such an open and honest manner. I want to find that community he speaks of. I don’t really think it makes a difference if it is a husband or child, just people that truly care about me. I know intellectually that only God can fill all the recesses in my heart that I yearn for others to fill, and I also believe that God is doing a work in me to learn to trust Him with the results. I definitely don’t want to give in to the “temptation to complain, to beg, to be overwhelmed and find (my) satisfaction in the pity I evoke”. Yuck, who wants that? The challenge is to not be overcome by my own whining, but to stand firm in Christ’s love as He directs me to those people He has ordained for me.
October 27th, 2008 @ 11:20 am
In my most recent struggles over the last 18 mos., is the tempation to give up on myself, even though my call to ministry lives in the very core of my being, in my very essence. There have been times when I get angry with God for handing me these crosses, however know that it is only in these crosses my destination (whatever that is) will be arrived at. I do lose faith in myself as well as others. I lose sureness and certainty, yet feel I couldn’t be closer to my creator. Loneliness and aloneness hound me, and feel it draws me away from a world that I do not feel part of. There are times I don’t understand why this path at this time for me, then I look to the Son of God and can imagine he may have had the same questions once in a while. I often wonder if Jesus FELT loved. I’ve been told to let God Be Enough…do I fail at this because of my human desire to be loved on earth? Of one thing I am sure. I do love my God with all my heart and with all my being. I pray for the grace to feel His love through those I meet.
October 25th, 2008 @ 9:37 am
Your meditation and sharing on these two pages of Henri Nouwen’s book strike a chord with me. There are so many things which divide people, classism, racism, nationalism, sexism, the list could go on and on. There is a yearning to see everyone carrying Christ within them, a yearning for deep, true, real friendships with all of the children God has created, a yearning for peace all over. I know the tough part of not losing faith in myself that I am also a child of God, carrying Christ within me, doubt dogs me every step of the Way, especially realizing how deceptive I can be to my own self. Somehow, through the Grace of God, there seems to be a transitoriness to the downturns in this faith journey and the thing that I sort of see as a blessing is, in the places all over the world, where people are actually fighting and murdering, torturing and maiming and hurting each other, many times because they see each other in “different groups”, the same stuff that happens down the years in the Bible from Pharaoh to the people crucifying Jesus, I am also deeply capable of feeling divided from people in disrespect, in alienation, in isolation, in fear, in stereotyping into “groups” and reacting due to that, it all brings me to seeing myself bound to others all over the world in our universal need of Jesus to deliver us all from this bunch of trouble we fall into without His Guidance in our lives. I’m thankful you shared your struggle–it helps me to go through my own struggle in standing up because I know more about the reality of the Christian life among all of us created for God’s purposes.
God bless,
Sharon
October 24th, 2008 @ 12:54 pm
A meaningful passage for me is on page 61, “Can you stand erect in your pain, your loneliness, your fears and your experience of being rejected? . . . You are called to acknowledge them and feel them while remaining on your feet.” This passage touches upon the questions I believe God asks me to answer: “Do you believe you are my child?” and “Do you love me?”
This has been difficult for I have been tempted to despair or to tolerating situations which clearly are not where I am welcome nor respected. If I am learning and being graced with one truth, then it is the unshakeable conviction that Christ is with me always. I may be bent over with pain or suffering, but I do not lose faith in God. The tougher part for me is not to lose faith in myself, not to fall victim to self rejection and then do to myself what others have done to me: to invalidate the God within me and sin against Him. I cannot always walk (stand) with Christ, although He always walks (stands) with me. Do others struggle with this?