Acceptance

ACCEPTANCE

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change;

The courage to change the things I can;

And the wisdom to know the difference. Serenity Prayer

"Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done." Jesus

The pain of unfulfillment is that of our human condition itself. One of the aspects of maturity is acceptance of unfulfillment, without resignation. This, paradoxically, moves us toward fulfillment.

"We can surrender to God all the worry about the things we have left uncompleted"

Paul Tournier, Learn to Grow Old.

Despair is found in every level of society, in all societies, in every corner of humanity. Those who cope with it best are those who know and accept its universality. Those who seem to have the worst time of it are those who continue to cling to the illusion that if only they could find the right mate/job/religion/amount of money/social status/family/home/sexual partner, etc., they could avoid it.

God accepts me: That is grace.

I accept God: That is faith.

Because of the above, I accept myself: That is peace.

Being at peace with myself, I can accept my brother: That is love.

My acceptance of my brother facilitates his acceptance of me: That is fellowship.

Attributed to Aldrian Rogers

Sometimes our problem is that we are grasping for something, even though we think that our problem is the evasiveness or absence of that for which we are grasping. The absence of what we think we need is oftentimes not so much a problem as the fear that we might not attain it - or that we will not be able to get along without it (or her/him).

When we accept the things that God has allowed in our lives - the things that righteousness confines us to - and we come to know that they are from God, (or at least that God is in authority over them) we find that these are the things that we always wanted or needed, no matter how diverse they are from what we thought we wanted. This acceptance deeply transforms our inner experience of our life in a most amazing and beneficial way.