Nouwen: Being Ourselves

“We tend to compare ourselves constantly with others.We will never find our vocations by trying to figure out whether we are better or worse than others. We are good enough to do what we are called to do. We must be ourselves.” Henri Nouwen, Henri Nouwen Society Daily Meditations

This is the spiritual journey, trying to become the person we were created by God to be. I remember when I first heard this phrase of “becoming the person God created us to be”. It was in a prayer given at a football game by the new Junior Miss of Arkansas, Kristin Murray. Gail and Pat Murray’s daughter. How amazing to learn this from a high school senior, a teenager no less. I think of the years I spent trying to be the person my mother wanted me to be, my father wanted me to be, and finally the person I thought I should be in order to succeed in life, the doctor, the mother, the wife, the deacon I thought I should be, trying to follow the path of those I admired or not following the path of those I did not admire.

I wish I had taken Kristin Murray’s message to heart so long ago, but I was not ready for it at the time, but I am ready now. This is a message I try to ask often in spiritual direction as well, “Who is the person that God created you to be?” Getting to know that person is the pathway straight to the God, the Christ, within us.

Joanna joannaseibert.com