You have found a treasure: the treasure of God’s love. You know now where it is, but you are not ready to own it fully. So many attachments keep pulling you away. If you would fully own your treasure, you must hide it in the field where you found it, go off happily to sell everything you own, and then come back and buy the field.
You can be truly happy that you have found the treasure. But you should not be so naïve as to think that you already own it. Only when you have let go everything else can the treasure be completely yours. … This is often a painful enterprise, because your sense of who you are is so intimately connected o all the things you own: success, friends, prestige, money, degrees, and so on. But you know that nothing but the treasure itself can truly satisfy you. Finding the treasure without being ready yet to fully own it will make you restless. This is the restlessness of the search for God. It is the way to holiness. It is the road to the kingdom. It is the journey to the place where you can rest.
Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love, p 111-112
A prayer to own your beauty
O God
Help me
To believe
The truth about myself
No matter
How beautiful it is!
(Wiederkehr, p 71)
Leave a reply