August 25, 2026

Enter The Pain

Who can take away suffering without entering it?

Nouwen wrote this in 1972 while teaching pastoral theology at Yale, watching young ministers try to help people from behind a wall of professional distance. He argued that real healing happens only when a helper is willing to feel the same loneliness and fear as the person they are trying to serve. This came from his own struggle with what it meant to be useful in a fragmented, isolated world rather than just appearing competent. It speaks to service today because contribution is not about fixing people from a safe distance but about showing up close enough to be affected by them.