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Book: Turn My Mourning into Dancing: Finding Hope in Hard Times
Quotes of Book: Turn My Mourning into Dancing:
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  1. Henri J.M. Nouwen _ Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

    We seem to have a fear of empty spaces. The philosopher Spinoza called this a horror vacui. We want to fill up what is empty. Our lives stay very full. And when we are not blinded by busyness, we fill our inner space with guilt about things of the past or worries about things to come.
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  2. Henri J.M. Nouwen _ Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

    Typically we see such hardship as an obstacle to what we think we should be-healthy, good-looking, free of discomfort. We consider suffering as annoying at best, meaningless at worst. We strive to get rid of our pains in whatever way we can. A part of us prefers the illusion that our losses are not real, that they come only as temporary interruptions. We thereby expend much energy in denial. "They should not prevent us from holding on to the real thing," we say to ourselves.
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  3. Henri J.M. Nouwen _ Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

    In Christ we live as God's beloved before we were born and after we have died; all the circumstances in between will not negate that. Jean"
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  4. Henri J.M. Nouwen _ Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

    Time has to be converted, then, from chronos, mere chronological time, to kairos, a New Testament Greek word that has to do with opportunity, with moments that seem ripe for their intended purpose. Then, even while life continues to seem harried, while it continues to have hard moments, we say, "Something good is happening amid all this." We get glimpses of how God might be working out his purposes in our days. Time becomes not just something to get through or manipulate or manage, but the arena of God's work with us. Whatever happens- good things or bad, pleasant or problematic-we look and ask, "What might God be doing here?" We see the events of the day as continuing occasions to change the heart. Time points to Another and begins to speak to us of God. We
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  5. Henri J.M. Nouwen _ Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

    I realized that healing begins with our taking our pain out of its diabolic isolation and seeing that whatever we suffer, we suffer it in communion with all of humanity, and yes, all of creation. In so doing, we become participants in the great battle against the powers of darkness. Our little lives participate in something larger.
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  6. Henri J.M. Nouwen _ Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

    Trust in God allows us to live with active expectation, not cynicism.
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  7. Henri J.M. Nouwen _ Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

    I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted; then I realized that the interruptions were my work.
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  8. Henri J.M. Nouwen _ Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

    Grateful people learn to celebrate even amid life's hard and harrowing memories because they know that pruning is no mere punishment, but preparation.
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  9. Henri J.M. Nouwen _ Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

    Christ invites us to remain in touch with the many sufferings of every day and to taste the beginning of hope and new life right there, where we live amid our hurts and pains and brokenness.
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  10. Henri J.M. Nouwen _ Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

    By inviting God into our difficulties we ground life-even its sad moments-in joy and hope. When we stop grasping our lives we can finally be given more than we could ever grab for ourselves. And we learn the way to a deeper love for others.
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  11. Henri J.M. Nouwen _ Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

    Community, then, cannot grow out of loneliness, but comes when the person who begins to recognize his or her belovedness greets the belovedness of the other. The God alive in me greets the God resident in you. When people can cease having to be for us everything, we can accept the fact they may still have a gift for us. They are partial reflections of the great love of God, but reflections nevertheless. We see that gift precisely and only once we give up requiring that person to be everything, to be God. We see him or her as a limited expression of an unlimited love.
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  12. Henri J.M. Nouwen _ Turn My Mourning into Dancing:

    I am less likely to deny my suffering when I learn how God uses it to mold me and draw me closer to him. I will be less likely to see my pains as interruptions to my plans and more able to see them as the means for God to make me ready to receive him. I let Christ live near my hurts and distractions.
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