Show me Your ways, O Lord. Teach me Your paths.1The Psalmist’s cry echoes through every generation and the heart of every seeker of the Truth Who is at the heart of all things.
Show Me The Way, a forty-day Lenten meditation, is a beautiful anthology of some of Henri Nouwen’s works. He was a celebrated author and a renowned spiritual master. This book will accompany and encourage all who are seeking Jesus and struggling on their own narrow and painful path to the cross.
Betty Skinner read and reread many of Nouwen’s more than thirty books during her years of struggle with clinical depression. Show Me The Way was eventually so marked up and falling apart that she held it together with a rubber band, and it became affectionately known as one of her “Rubberband Books.” With only a glimmer of faith and Nouwen’s help, she persevered to the foot of the cross and through it into glorious newness of life. Prayerfully may Nouwen’s words and hers be an encouragement to you this Lenten season.
From Show Me The Way:
Jesus presents to us the great mystery of the descending way. It is the way of suffering, but also the way to healing. It is the way of humiliation, but also the way to the resurrection. It is the way of tears, but of tears that turn into tears of joy. It is the way of hiddenness, but also the way that leads to the light that will shine for all.
The descending way is a way that is concealed in each person’s heart. But because it is so seldom walked on, it’s often overgrown with weeds. Slowly but surely we have to clear the weeds, open the way, and set out unafraid.
And from Betty, as we shared in The Hidden Life Awakened:
Many, many people come to the altar, but few find their way to the foot of the cross. Only John the beloved and the three Marys were there when our Lord was crucified—fear had scattered the rest. Jesus leads us to the foot of the cross, and then we are drawn into the cross. There we die to all that is false and become one with Him. It is when we pass through the cross that our hearts are softened by a profound compassion that embraces the whole world. We have finally passed through ourselves and transcended the things of the world that would keep us in bondage.
Our pain and our cross can and will speak to the wounded hearts of others in God’s time and in His way. This is fertile suffering. Transformation happens if we are willing to walk the way of the cross.