Presenting the Whole of our Lives

I got this from my friend Brenda as we pondered how to support people who are suffering and grieving and feeling rather insignificant and helpless in our work:

"The mystery of life is that the Lord of life cannot be known except in and through the act of living. Without concrete and specific involvements of daily life we cannot come to know the loving presence of him who holds us in the palm of his hand. Our limited acts of love reveal to us his unlimited love. Our small gestures of care reveal his boundless care. Our fearful and hesitant words reveal his fearless and guiding Word. It is indeed through our broken, vulnerable, mortal ways of being that the healing power of the eternal God becomes visible to us. Therefore, we are called each day to present to our Lord the whole of our lives - our joys as well as sorrows, our successes as well as failures, our hopes as well as fears. We are called to do so with our limited means, our stuttering words and halting expressions. In this way, we will come to know in mind and heart the unceasing prayer of God's Spirit in us. Our many prayers are in fact confessions of our inability to pray. But they are confessions that enable us to perceive the merciful presence of God"

Henri Nouwen, Mornings with Henri J.M. Nouwen, p. 39.