The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom

The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom is a collection of passages from Henri Nouwen's journals, written during a period when his self-esteem evaporated, his energy to work disappeared, and God seemed entirely unreal. This is not a book to be read straight through: each short chapter takes time to digest, because, like the following passage, each of Nouwen's thoughts has the raw complexity of real honesty:

Your body needs to be held and to hold, to be touched and to touch. None of these needs is to be despised, denied, or repressed. But you have to keep searching for your body's deeper need, the need for genuine love. Every time you are able to go beyond the body's superficial desires for love, you are bringing your body home and moving toward integration and unity.

--Michael Joseph Gross

• You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living
• Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World
• The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming
• Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life
• The Way of the Heart: Connecting with God Through Prayer, Wisdom, and Silence
• Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety
• The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society
• Here and Now: Living in the Spirit
• Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
• Turn My Mourning into Dancing