{"id":90,"date":"2009-12-21T08:43:31","date_gmt":"2009-12-21T08:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2009\/12\/the-companion-of-christmas-henri-nouwen.html"},"modified":"2009-12-21T08:43:31","modified_gmt":"2009-12-21T08:43:31","slug":"the-companion-of-christmas-henri-nouwen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2009\/12\/the-companion-of-christmas-henri-nouwen.html","title":{"rendered":"The Companion of Christmas &#8211; Henri Nouwen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, serif;line-height: 16px;color: #333333\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0.75em;margin-right: 0px;margin-bottom: 0.75em;margin-left: 0px\">&quot;God came to us because he wanted to join us on the road, to listen to our story, and to help us realize that we are not walking in circles but moving towards the house of peace and joy.&#160; This is the great mystery of Christmas that continues to give us comfort and consolation: we are not alone on our journey.&#160; The God of love who gave us life sent his only Son to be with us at all times and in all places, so that we never have to feel lost in our struggles but always can trust that he walks with us.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0.75em;margin-right: 0px;margin-bottom: 0.75em;margin-left: 0px\">The challenge is to let God be who he wants to be.&#160; A part of us clings to our aloneness and does not allow God to touch us where we are most in pain.&#160; Often we hide from him precisely those places in ourselves where we feel guilty, ashamed, confused, and lost.&#160; Thus we do not give him a chance to be with us where we feel most alone.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0.75em;margin-right: 0px;margin-bottom: 0.75em;margin-left: 0px\">Christmas is the renewed invitation not to be afraid and to let him-whose love is greater than our own hearts and minds can comprehend-be our companion&quot;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;margin-top: 0.75em;margin-right: 0px;margin-bottom: 0.75em;margin-left: 0px\">&#8211; Henri Nouwen,&#160;<em>Gracias<\/em><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&quot;God came to us because he wanted to join us on the road, to listen to our story, and to help us realize that we are not walking in circles but moving towards the house of peace and joy.&#160; This is the great mystery of Christmas that continues to give us comfort and consolation: we&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[118,125],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-swaziland","tag-christmas","tag-henri-nouwen"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Companion of Christmas - Henri Nouwen - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2009\/12\/the-companion-of-christmas-henri-nouwen.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Companion of Christmas - Henri Nouwen - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;God came to us because he wanted to join us on the road, to listen to our story, and to help us realize that we are not walking in circles but moving towards the house of peace and joy.&#160; 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A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}