Philip Yancey says that Henri Nouwen’s slim book with the wonderful title, The Wounded Healer, describes the lonely, abandoned people who have no one to love them.Nouwen tells of a young minister who has nothing to offer an old man facing surgery, except his own loving concern.
“No man can stay alive when nobody is waiting for him,” writes Nouwen.
“Everyone who returns from a long and difficult trip is looking for someone waiting for him at the station or the airport. Everyone wants to tell his story and share his moments of pain and exhilaration with someone who stayed home, waiting for him to come back.”
Sources
Philip Yancey, Church: Why Bother? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998, 78.
Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, Darton,Longman & Todd Ltd.
Related
Henri Nouwen: The Wounded Healer, SFS.
Henri Nouwen: Gift of a Free Space, SFS.
Wanting a Real Blessing, SFS.
Holy Earthiness, SFS.
Dr Geoff Pound
Geoff can be contacted by email at geoffpound(at)gmail.com on Facebook and Twitter.
Image: “Everyone who returns from a long and difficult trip is looking for someone waiting for him at the station or the airport.”