![\"Turn](\"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/New-Blog-Book-Review-Graphic-31.png\")
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Today I’m glad to be finally reviewing a little book that was a very welcome piece of spiritual nourishment for me recently. While I’d heard of him before, perhaps most notably in Wesley Hill’s superb Washed and Waiting<\/a>, I’d never really read anything by the reasonably well known author, lecturer, and pastor, Henri Nouwen. Turn my Mourning into Dancing<\/em> is a collection and edition of a range of reflections and writings by the author on finding hope, meaning and joy in hard times. It is a beautifully written book, which invites the reader to consider where God might be, and what God might be up to, in difficult parts of life.<\/p>\n Many readers of this blog will know that I have suffered from depression<\/a> in the past, and I have many friends and family who have suffered other, often worse, darknesses. This book could be a helpful candle in that darkness. Nouwen grounds his discussion of the hard things in a wise place;<\/p>\n “by inviting God into our difficulties we ground life – even in its sad moments – in joy and hope. When we stop grasping our lives we can finally be given more than we could ever grab for our selves. And we learn the way to a deeper love for others<\/i>” p. xv<\/p>\n I think that is profound, and recognises the reality of the Christian God, the God who enters into and experiences our humanity and suffering. His idea of surrender is something I find very powerful, particularly as it is surrender for\/to service. This love echoes the way of the Kingdom of God – something I’m likely to blog on shortly. Nouwen directly references this as he notes that;<\/p>\n “at the centre of our Christian faith we perceive a God who took on himself the burden of the entire world. Suffering invites us to place our hurts in larger hands. In Christ we see God suffering – for us. And calling us to share in God’s suffering love for a hurting world<\/i>” p. 11<\/p>\n I could go on sharing quotes and nuggets from this slim and powerful book. It deeply encouraged and nourished me, even though I did not always entirely agree with some of the ‘theology’ in this book. This was a simple review to write – I just wanted to give you, my readers, a sample of what Nouwen writes, and encourage you to read this little book. Turn my Mourning into Dancing<\/em> was the first book by Nouwen that I read, and revisiting again has encouraged me to read more widely into his corpus, which is a rare accolade for a book!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today I’m glad to be finally reviewing a little book that was a very welcome piece of spiritual nourishment for me recently. While I’d heard of him before, perhaps most notably in Wesley Hill’s superb Washed and Waiting, I’d never … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"kt_blocks_editor_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,622,125],"tags":[928,99],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2557,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555\/revisions\/2557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}