Henri did it again.

I read my first Henri Nouwen book in college - At the Name of Jesus - and was floored. I think I read it twice, straight through. My copy is highlighted and underlined and has multi-colored flags all along the side. It will forever be one of my very favorite works and I recommend it highly. Henri Nouwen immediately become one of my all-time favorite authors. I have since read many of his other works and I hold fast to my immediate determination that virtually anything that comes from his pen is deeply rooted in Truth and will re-directs my feet toward the straight and steady path.

Yesterday I knew I would be spending some time with the neurologist, which is bound to be a downer, so I brought along a Nouwen I had yet to read. I scoured pages 1 - 90 while in the waiting room - underlining and turning corners at an unfathomable rate. I needed this book desperately - a reminder that we are CHOSEN, BELOVED, BROKEN, & GIVEN. I pictured the faces of my CHOSEN teens and the Rwandan campers I hold so dear - the words on these pages sing to them as they do to me - YOU ARE CHOSEN, YOU ARE CALLED BELOVED. Your days have meaning and purpose and validity and your brokenness is unique to you, it is part of what makes you an individual and no one else can possibly understand it - but it is not wasted - it is mighty and it is part of what He is writing to shine His glory on earth. Oh my goodness the beauty of being distinct and called to more.

“Our preciousness, uniqueness, and individuality are not given to us by those who meet us in clock-time - our brief, logical existence - but by the One who has chosen us with an everlasting love, a love that existed from all eternity and will last through all eternity. life is a God-given opportunity to become who we are, to affirm our own true spiritual nature, claim our truth, appropriate and integration the reality of our being, but most of all to say “YES” to the One who calls us Beloved.” 

Oh HN. Thank you for setting my heart on fire and course-correcting me once again. I applaud you and am SO GRATEFUL for your rich collection of truth and the ways you have been used to direct so many toward the One who has called each of us and is drawing us toward Kingdom work here and NOW!