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The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society Paperback – March 1, 1979
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“In our own woundedness, we can become a source of life for others.”
In this hope-filled and profoundly simple book, Henri Nouwen inspires devoted men and women who want to be of service in their church or community but who have found traditional outreach alienating and ineffective. Weaving keen cultural analysis with his psychological and religious insights, Nouwen presents a balanced and creative theology of service that begins with the realization of fundamental woundedness in human nature.
According to Nouwen, ministers are called to identify the suffering in their own hearts and make that recognition the starting point of their service. Ministers must be willing to go beyond their professional, somewhat aloof roles and leave themselves open as fellow human beings with the same wounds and suffering as those they serve. In other words, we heal from our wounds. The Wounded Healer is a thoughtful and insightful guide that will be welcomed by anyone engaged in the service of others.
- Print length100 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherImage
- Publication dateMarch 1, 1979
- Dimensions5.48 x 0.39 x 8.23 inches
- ISBN-100385148038
- ISBN-13978-0385148030
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Editorial Reviews
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-- The Record
The Wounded Healer is Nouwen at his best .... the ideas it implants linger long after the book is read, and re-read. -- Best Sellers
"One of the world's greatest spiritual writers." --Christianity Today
From the Publisher
From the Author
From the Inside Flap
While the earlier edition might have attracted mainly people in Church ministry, the present volume is a universal call for compassion within relationships, on our journey to becoming more fully human.
Sue Mosteller, C.S.J.
The Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust
From the Back Cover
About the Author
Henri Nouwen wrote over 40 books on spirituality and the spiritual life that have sold millions of copies and been translated into dozens of languages. His vision of spirituality was broad and inclusive, and his compassion embraced all of humankind.
He died in 1996. His work and his spirit live on.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Ministry in a Dislocated World
The Human Search
Introduction
From time to time someone enters your life whose appearance, behavior, and words intimate in a dramatic way the contemporary human condition. Peter was one such person for me. He came to ask for help, but at the same time he offered a new understanding of my own world! This is his portrait:
Peter is twenty-six years old. His body is fragile; his face, framed in long blond hair, is thin, with a city pallor. His eyes are tender and radiate a longing melancholy. His lips are sensual, and his smile evokes an atmosphere of intimacy. When he shakes hands he breaks through the formal ritual in such a way that you feel his body as really present. When he speaks, his voice assumes tones that ask to be listened to with careful attention.
As we talk, it becomes clear that Peter feels as if the many boundaries that give structure to life are becoming increasingly vague. His life seems to be drifting. It is a life over which he has no control, a life determined by many known and unknown factors in his surroundings. The clear distinction between Peter and his milieu is gone and he feels that his ideas and feelings are not really his; rather, they are brought upon him.
Sometimes he wonders: “What is fantasy and what is reality?” Often he has the strange feeling that small devils enter his head and create a painful and anxious confusion. He also does not know whom he can trust and who not, what he shall do and what not, why to say “yes” to one and “no” to another. The many distinctions between good and bad, ugly and beautiful, attractive and repulsive, are losing meaning for him. Even to the most bizarre suggestions he says: “Why not? Why not try something I have never tried? Why not have a new experience, good or bad?”
In the absence of clear boundaries between himself and his milieu, between fantasy and reality, between what to do and what to avoid, it seems that Peter has become a prisoner of the now, caught in the present without meaningful connections with his past or future. When he goes home he feels that he enters a world that has become alien to him.
The words his parents use, their questions and concerns, their aspirations and worries, seem to belong to another world, with another language and another mood. When he looks into his future everything becomes one big blur, an impenetrable cloud. He finds no answers to questions about why he lives and where he is heading. Peter is not working hard to reach a goal, he does not look forward to the fulfillment of a great desire, nor does he expect that something great or important is going to happen. He looks into empty space and is sure of only one thing: If there is anything worthwhile in life, it must be here and now.
I did not paint this portrait of Peter to show you a picture of someone in need of psychiatric help. No, I think Peter’s situation is in many ways typical of the condition of modern men and women. Perhaps Peter needs help, but his experiences and feelings cannot be understood merely in terms of individual psychopathology. They are part of the historical context in which we all live, a context that makes it possible to see in Peter’s life the signs of the times, which we too recognize in our life experiences. What we see in Peter is a painful expression of the situation of what I call “humanity in the modern age.”
In this chapter I would like to arrive at a deeper understanding of our human predicament as it becomes visible through the many men and women who experience life as Peter does. And I hope to discover in the midst of our present ferment new ways to liberation and freedom.
I will therefore divide this chapter into two parts: The Predicament of Humanity in the Modern Age, and Humanity’s Way to Liberation in the Modern Age.
I. The Predicament of Humanity in the modern Age
People have lost naïve faith in the possibilities of technology and are painfully aware that the same powers that enable us to create new life styles also carry the potential for self-destruction.
Let me tell you a tale of ancient India that might help us to illustrate the situation of humanity in the modern age:
Four royal sons were questioning what specialty they should master. They said to one another, “Let us search the earth and learn a special science.” So they decided, and after they had agreed on a place where they would meet again, the four brothers started off, each in a different direction. Time went by, and the brothers met again at the appointed meeting place, and they asked one another what they had learned. “I have mastered a science,” said the first, “which makes it possible for me, if I have nothing but a piece of bone of some creature, to create straight away the flesh that goes with it.” “I,” said the second, “know how to grow that creature’s skin and hair if there is flesh on its bones.” The third said, “I am able to create its limbs if I have the flesh, the skin, and the hair.” “And I,” concluded the fourth, “know how to give life to that creature if its form is complete with limbs.”
Thereupon the four brothers went into the jungle to find a piece of bone so that they could demonstrate their specialties. As fate would have it, the bone they found was a lion’s, but they did not know that and picked up the bone. One added flesh to the bone, the second grew hide and hair, the third completed it with matching limbs, and the fourth gave the lion life. Shaking its heavy mane, the ferocious beast arose with its menacing mouth, sharp teeth, and merciless claws and jumped on his creators. He killed them all and vanished contentedly into the jungle.
Contemporary people realize that our creative powers hold the potential for self-destruction. We understand that vast new industrial complexes enable us to produce in one hour that which we labored over for years in the past, but we also realize that these same industries have disturbed the ecological balance and, through air, water, and noise pollution, have contaminated our planet.
We drive cars and watch TV, but few of us understand the workings of the instruments we use. Most of us see such an abundance of material commodities around us that scarcity no longer motivates our lives, but at the same time we are groping for direction and asking for meaning and purpose. In all this we suffer from the inevitable knowledge that our time is one in which it has become possible for us to destroy, not only life but also the possibility of re-birth, not only an individual but also the human race, not only periods of existence but also history itself. The future of humanity has now become an option.
Those who lived in a pre-modern age might be aware of the real paradox of a world in which life and death touch each other in a morbid way and in which we find ourselves on a thin rope that can break so easily, but they have adapted this knowledge to their previous optimistic outlook on life. For those who were born in the modern age, however, this new knowledge cannot be adapted to old insights, nor be channeled by traditional institutions; rather it radically and definitely disrupts all existing frames of human reference. For such people, the problem is not that the future holds a new danger, such as a nuclear war, but that there might be no future at all.
Young people are not necessarily modern, and old people are not necessarily pre-modern. The difference is not in age but in consciousness and the related lifestyle. The psycho-historian Robert Jay Lifton has given us some excellent concepts to determine the nature of the quandaries of those who live in today’s world. In Lifton’s terms, modern people can by characterized by (1) a historical dislocation, (2) a fragmented ideology, and (3) a search for new immortality. It might be useful to examine Peter’s life in the light of these concepts.
1. Historical dislocation
When Peter’s father asks him when will he take his final exam, and whether he has found a good girl to marry; and when his mother carefully inquires about confession and communion and his membership in a Catholic fraternity—they both suppose that Peter’s expectations for the future are essentially the same as theirs.
But Peter thinks of himself more as one of the “last ones in the experiment of living” than as a pioneer working for a new future. Therefore, symbols used by his parents cannot possibly have the same unifying and integrating power for him that they have for people with a pre-modern mentality.
This experience of Peter’s we call “historical dislocation.” It is a “break in the sense of connection, which men have long felt with the vital and nourishing symbol of their cultural tradition; symbols revolving around family, idea-systems, religion, and the life-cycle in general.” Why should people marry and have children, study and build a career; why should they invent new techniques, build new institutions, and develop new ideas—when they doubt if there will be a tomorrow that can guarantee the value of human effort?
Crucial for those who live in the modern age is the lack of a sense of continuity, which is so vital for a creative life. We find ourselves part of a non-history in which only the sharp moment of the here and now is valuable. For modern-age people life easily becomes a bow whose string is broken and from which no arrow can fly. In this dislocated state we become paralyzed. Our reactions are not anxiety and joy, which were so much a part of human existence, but apathy and boredom. Only when we feel ourselves responsible for the future can we have hope or despair; but when we think of ourselves as the passive victims of an extremely complex technological bureaucracy, our motivation falters and we start drifting from one moment to the next, making life a long row of randomly chained incidents and accidents.
When we wonder why the language of traditional Christianity has lost its liberating power for those who live in the modern age, we have to realize that most Christian preaching is still based on the presupposition that we see ourselves as meaningfully integrated with a history in which God came to us in the past, is living under us in the present, and will come to liberate us in the future. But when our historical consciousness is broken, the whole Christian message seems like a lecture about the great pioneers to someone on an acid trip.
2. Fragmented ideology
One of the most surprising aspects of Peter’s life is his fast-shifting value system. For many years he was a very strict and obedient seminarian. He went to daily Mass, took part in the many hours of community prayers, was active in a liturgical committee, and studied with great interest and even enthusiasm the many theological materials for his courses.
But when he decided to leave the seminary and study at a secular university, it took him only a few months to shake off his old way of life. He quietly stopped going to Mass even on Sundays, spent long nights drinking and playing with other students, lived with a girlfriend, took up a field of study far removed from his theological interests, and seldom spoke about God or religion.
This is the more surprising since Peter shows absolutely no bitterness towards the old seminary. He even visits his friends there regularly and has good memories of his years as a religious man. But the idea that his two lifestyles are not very consistent hardly seems to hit him. Both experiences are valuable and have their good and bad sides, but why should life be lived from just one perspective, under the guidance of just one idea, and within one unchangeable frame of reference?
Peter does not regret his seminary days nor glorify his present situation. Tomorrow it might be different again. Who knows? All depends on the people you meet, the experiences you have, and the ideas and desires that make sense to you at the moment.
Those who live in the modern age, like Peter, do not live with an ideology. We have shifted from the fixed and total forms of an ideology to more fluid ideological fragments. One of the most visible phenomena of our time is the tremendous exposure of people to divergent and often contrasting ideas, traditions, religious convictions, and lifestyles.
Through mass media we are confronted with the most paradoxical human experiences. We are confronted not only with the most elaborate and expensive attempts to save the life of one person by heart transplantation, but also with the powerlessness of the world to help when thousands of people die from lack of food. We are confronted not only with humanity’s ability to travel to another planet, but also with our hopeless impotence to end a senseless war on this planet. We are confronted not only with high-level discussions about human rights and Christian morality, but also with the torture chambers of Brazil, Greece, and Vietnam. We are confronted not only with incredible ingenuity that can build dams, change river-beds and create fertile new lands, but also with earthquakes, floods and tornadoes that can ruin in one hour more than human beings can build in a generation. People confronted with all this and trying to make sense of it cannot possibly deceive themselves with one idea, concept, or thought system that would bring these contrasting images together into one consistent outlook on life.
“The extraordinary flow of post-modern cultural influences” asks a growing flexibility of those who live in the modern age, a willingness to remain open and live with the small fragments which at the moment seem to offer the best response to a given situation. Paradoxically, this can lead to moments of great exhilaration and exaltation in which we immerse ourselves totally in the flashing impressions of our immediate surroundings.
Those who live in the modern age no longer believe in anything that is always and everywhere true and valid. We live by the hour and create our lives on the spot. Our art is a collage art—an art that, through a combination of divergent pieces, is a short impression of how we feel at the moment. Our music is an improvisation that combines themes from various composers into something fresh as well as momentary. Our lives often look like playful expressions of feelings and ideas that need to be communicated and responded to, but which do not attempt to oblige anyone else.
This fragmented ideology can prevent us from becoming fanatics who are willing to die or to kill for an idea. We are primarily looking for experiences that give us a sense of value. Therefore we are very tolerant, since we do not regard someone with a different conviction as a threat but rather as an opportunity to discover new ideas and test our own. We might listen with great attention to a rabbi, an imam, a minister, or a priest, without considering the acceptance of any system of thought, but quite willing to deepen our own understanding of what we experience as partial and fragmentary.
When we feel ourselves unable to relate to the Christian message, we may wonder whether this is not due to the fact that, for many people, Christianity has become an ideology. Jesus, a Jew executed by the leaders of his time, is quite often transformed into a cultural hero reinforcing the most divergent and often destructive ideological points of view. When Christianity is reduced to an all-encompassing ideology, those of us who live in the modern age are all too prone to be skeptical about its relevance to our life experience.
Product details
- Publisher : Image; First Edition (March 1, 1979)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 100 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0385148038
- ISBN-13 : 978-0385148030
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.48 x 0.39 x 8.23 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #15,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #20 in Christian Pastoral Resources (Books)
- #131 in Inspirational Spirituality (Books)
- #255 in Christian Inspirational
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About the author
Henri Nouwen was born in Holland in 1932 and ordained a Catholic priest in 1957. He obtained his doctorandus in psychology from Nijmegen University in The Netherlands and taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard. He experienced the monastic life with Trappist monks at the Abbey of the Genesee, lived among the poor in Latin America with the Maryknoll missioners, and was interested and active in numerous causes related to social justice. After a lifetime of seeking, Henri Nouwen finally found his home in Canada, as pastor of L'Arche Daybreak - where people with intellectual disabilities and their caregivers live together in community.
Henri Nouwen wrote over 40 books on spirituality and the spiritual life that have sold millions of copies and been translated into dozens of languages. His vision of spirituality was broad and inclusive, and his compassion embraced all of humankind.
He died in 1996. His work and his spirit live on.
Henri Nouwen pronounced his name "Henry Now-en." For more information on his life and work, please visit www.henrinouwen.org .
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Customers find the book insightful and useful for ministering to people. They find the writing clear and easy to read, with profound truths and wisdom. The text is affecting and inspiring, with depth and richness that readers appreciate. Many customers love the author's love story and consider it an inspiration. However, some feel the content is outdated and not timeless.
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Customers find the book insightful and helpful for ministering to people. They appreciate the author's personal experiences and profound truths. The book is a great resource for pastors and Christian leaders who want to turn their weaknesses into strengths. It provides a deeper understanding of ministering to the broken.
"...I love the book, but I also agree with the film's message. Where there are serious risks, there must be thoughtful limitations...." Read more
"He was young when he wrote this book. Over the years he gained so much wisdom, his later books reflect this." Read more
"...because of "meeting" Mr. Harrison and for the closing chapters revealing ministry as hospitality where we create space to share both pain and..." Read more
"...He touched on many topics such as empathy, compassion, listening, and engaging in conflict with those who are wounded...." Read more
Customers find the book's message clear and easy to understand. They appreciate the author's insights and consider it an inspiring read.
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"...This is not an easy book to read if you are not familiar with philosophy or theology. But it's a worthwhile one...." Read more
"...Henri Nouwen is one of those gifted writers, who explores dense topics without making them dense to the reader...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's depth. They find it spiritual and practical, with a personal touch. The book is described as reflective, inspiring, and filled with gems.
"Henri Nouwen is remarkable for the personal depth he incorporates into his writings...." Read more
"This book has a spiritual and practical depth to it that was unexpected and welcomed! A must read for all in Christian ministry...." Read more
"Love Nouwen's writing! Easy to read but filled with gems in those pages! Practical meets philosophical. Highly recommend!" Read more
"Reflective, inspiring, rich, deep, universal - I loved it!..." Read more
Customers appreciate the love story. They find Henri Nouwen inspiring and comforting.
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- Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2010In the 1957 film "Funny Face", Audrey Hepburn becomes romantically involved with a wounder healer from Paris, France. The result is a disaster. His instructions about caring spill over into sexual exploitation. Fortunately, she escapes but not without some scars.
We find in Nouwen's book some thoughtful instructions for understanding our neighbors. We also learn some things about boundaries and respect for privacy. But there are serious limitations to the kind of thing Nouwen advocates. Consider this statement:
"The mystery of one man is too immense and too profound to be explained by another man." WH, p 62.
The inner thoughts of our pysche are built on layers of information gathered over millions of moments. The typsy architecture beneath these layers is built around episodes of major trauma and sustained trust. If we open the windows on someone's unstable reality, we could cause more damage than good. Although we might need to be there as a source of stability and trust, we cannot hope to understand everything.
Nouwen's book came out a decade after the film "Funny Face". The two are not connected as far as I know. I love the book, but I also agree with the film's message. Where there are serious risks, there must be thoughtful limitations. Read the book carefully, check out the film, and see for yourself. The message here is timeless, and especially relevant in our age of gross exploitation, often by wounded healers.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2024Good
- Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2011This is a complex book on a topic that all too often is reduced to oversimplified solutions. We expect our books on healing to be rife with clinical studies and devotional exegesis on selected Biblical verses, passages, or stories. When we are without these two guideposts, many people become uncomfortable. What is a book (and who is an author) that dares to not reference directly either one of these great guides? What (and who) indeed.
Written forty years ago, this book could have been written today. The disconnectedness, the loneliness, the isolation, and the inability to see the future as a relevant and anticipatory reality remains just as heightened today, even if the casual sex and drug use prevalent when this was written has been mainstreamed in many ways so as not to seem so jarring. In a culture in which always-connected is not just a possibility but an emotional necessity for many young people, this isolation only seems more acute. We can poke each other on Facebook, but how well does anyone really know us? And visa versa? When friendship becomes a commodity that we compete to acquire for social leveraging and virtual influence (not new in itself, but much more blatant now that we can see the numbers), can you really trust anyone's friendship?
This book is not easy to read. It is philosophical and theological. Many might claim that it is not practical. Nouwen does not reduce healing to a matter of twelve steps or six necessities or an action plan. Because, of course, healing is not that simple, either for the healer or the healed. Nouwen rather argues that we are all affected by the malaise of isolationism and the undercurrents of hopelessness and cynicism that streak our culture. We are all wounded, all in need of healing. Anyone familiar with the writings of Francis Schaffer and other philosopher/theologians of the period will find Nouwen's musings to be representative.
Nouwen makes some observations on the process of listening to those who are wounded, and how to move beyond the clinical listening that reflects but never engages, affirms that something has been said but never demonstrates that what has been said has any effect or meaning to the hearer. Good stuff here, though hardly what most would consider 'practical' or 'hands on' today.
Nouwen ends with a fascinating assertion - the idea that hospitality can be a way forward in dealing with the isolationism of our age. That in opening our homes and ourselves to others, we create environments where real connection and real healing can occur. For those who decry the lack of Biblical references in this book, I'd suggest consideration of 1 Timothy 3:2. There, in the midst of many other, more easily defined attributes, "hospitality" is indicated as an important quality of Christian leadership. In my admittedly little reading thus far, I have yet to find a text that deals with this particular quality in any meaningful way. Yet I see the lack of this quality as pervasive in our culture. When no one can be trusted, how can we invite them into our homes, or allow ourselves to be brought into theirs? How can hospitality truly be engaged in when people are conditioned to reject it as suspicious and full of potential harm? Coincidence? I suspect not. I believe that Nouwen is hitting on a key issue here. Not in a manner that solves a problem and enables us to check another box off of our 'to-do' list for the week, but in such a way as we alter the environment of the relationships in our lives. We become real to others, and allow them to be real with us. The difference that hospitality can make in a relationship is something that has been borne out repeatedly by experience in my life, both personally and ministerially, yet I doubt we'll likely see a clinical study on it any time soon.
This is not an easy book to read if you are not familiar with philosophy or theology. But it's a worthwhile one. It prompts us to stop and consider that programs are not necessarily what is needed when someone is hurting. They need to know they are heard. That they are not alone either existentially or in their particular hurt, and that it is ok that they are hurt and expressing themselves. Valuable reminders in our clinical, programmatic age.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2024Wasn’t too fond of the book at the beginning but I decided to give it a chance and I can genuinely say that I am glad that I did. Also, there was not too many pages and did not take me long to finish at all.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2024Bless someone with a copy
- Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2024This book arrived in a timely manner in good shape. I will be reading it soon.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2016Nouwen writes about his visit to the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco and his reflections on the impact of the HIV virus on the lives of people living there. He does not find fault, he does not condemn, nor does he use Christianity to polarize the reader against those who so shell-shocked by the possibility they may be infected that they avoid testing, as I've read in the books by other Christian leaders. Rather, Nouwen approaches them with compassion. In many ways, San Francisco became a refugee camp, filled with young men and women who were condemned by their families and neighbors and forced to leave their homes. The Haight was an area they could find acceptance and understanding in a time when the fear of AIDS was rampant in American society. It was an infection that touched families of the affluent and the poor of all ethnicities, men and women, and of all religions. I remember Henry visiting the infected son of a Catholic family in Oakland. He came with an open heart at a time when AIDS led to a certain death. His ability to reach to others was based on the time he spent understanding his own pain, his own sinfulness, and the forces that led him to judge others. He was, indeed, the wounded healer.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2023He was young when he wrote this book. Over the years he gained so much wisdom, his later books reflect this.
Top reviews from other countries
- Jodie KoopmanReviewed in Canada on August 27, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars So informative !
Really helpful to understand people and I am learning about the generations and their mindsets but this was written in the 1970s and is more about the boomers (the then “modernists”) however I can see gen z in the boomer thinking. Interesting, and so helpful this book.
- Maxine FReviewed in the United Kingdom on December 21, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars I can't recommend this book enough
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Its small but packs a punch. As a Christian studying to be a counsellor, I wanted something that would guide me as to how I can mix my two passions effectively; counselling and faith. Nouwen shows that the two can go hand in hand without conflict.
Throughout my studying as a counsellor my own wounds have inevitably come to the surface and this book has helped me to not run from them but to embrace them as gifts to help others to heal.
I absolutely loved this sentence "The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there."
This is one of those return to books to remind you what loving others is all about and the gift to be found and shared in your own pain. I can't recommend it enough.
Not just for ministers and leaders but for anyone who desires authentic interactions with those who are in pain
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P. George ElsbettReviewed in Germany on August 31, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Profound
Many things have changed in society since this book has been written. And yet it seems to have lost none of its relevance. His proposal of ministry based on hospitality is particularly pertinent and his explanation of what HOSPITALITY should look like especially in the heart of the minister, is particularly rich. He makes a very good point in that he shows that ministry without personal involvement will be extremely fruitless, if not downright harmful. Effective ministry requires being in deeply in touch with one's own woundedness and a deep willingness for vulnerability. Thank you for a very thought-provoking book!
- Karan DuaReviewed in India on October 6, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
A great book
- Lars DahlanderReviewed in Italy on December 11, 2014
5.0 out of 5 stars God in the midst of our weakness.
This is a very interesting book written by someone who discovered the strenght of God in what to us humans seems to be weak. In our weakness we come closer to God