Maybe it’s my brain chemistry. I have no idea. But one of the things I’m always trying to remember whether it’s guilt, whether it’s shame, whether it’s regret, whether it’s future tripping, whatever it may be, when I slip into these dark states, it goes back to Henri Nouwen for me: You’re the beloved.
And because you’re the beloved, your story is worth naming on a personal level and then maybe sharing to help and heal others. Like when I lost my mom suddenly a few years ago, remembering that I was the beloved did not solve anything. It did not explain how a perfectly healthy person’s heart can stop in the middle of the night.
However, it reminded me of a God that enters more deeply into my suffering without the need to explain it because we are the beloved.
—from Franciscan Media’s Off the Page
with host Stephen Copeland, featuring Richard Patterson, PhD
