9. Acceptance…
When we face a tragic loss, we feel for a while that we are living in a bizarre unreality. We experience grief and guilt. Guilt may be intense or light, deserved or undeserved. Both grief and guilt colour our impression of who we are, what we are capable of doing, and how we will go on with our lives.
We may have no choices about these undesirable aspects of life. They find us. But we do have choices about who we become given the new reality.
(from The End of Innocence, Allegra Jordan)
I have been crying a lot in church lately. Our worship leader was exhorting us to sing out our praise, shout to the Lord. Bless her! I wanted to, I really did, but I can neither sing nor shout anymore. My laryngectomy saw to that. I am overwhelmed at my loss. We all face these times, these undesirable circumstances – a pandemic, a redundancy, an exam failure, cancer…
In the midst of the pain of loss, the grief, the shame of not being whole, I know I want to live extravagantly again. John Eldredge, in his book, Resilience, describes this desire as our Primal Drive for Life, our craving for the life God had ordained for us.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
Psalm 139:16
For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
Romans 8:28
We all want to live our Primal Lives, lives of exciting, new experiences that stretch us, take us out on a limb. Yet we struggle with the idea that with the circumstances we find ourselves in we can no longer live those lives that God has purposed for us and we become broken, ashamed. Somehow, because I can no longer sing or shout, that I can no longer fully worship God as he intended me to, that I am shameful, I am no longer the person he planned me to be.
But what if those plans, those purposes, include how our lives play out after these things have happened to us. After all our all-knowing, all-seeing God knew everything that would happen to us in our short span on this earth before we were born. He knew every decision we would make, every illness we would suffer, every circumstance, pandemic, loss we would experience and yet still his plans could be fulfilled. It all depends on what we do – the choices we make when these circumstances arise. Wow, that’s mind-blowing stuff.
I’m not saying that that God makes us sick, brings on pandemics, causes us to do wrong. No, that is the playing ground of the devil. But God has him on a leash. Because of Jesus and what he did on the cross, Satan no longer has power over us, and we are free to choose God’s way every time – we don’t need to be broken, to be ashamed. Yes, we are part of a fallen world, pain, disease, sin exist all around us and impact us. Sometimes physically like the permanent hole in my neck or my reconstructed left breast. Sometimes mentally as we suffer from depression, anxiety. And sometimes the evidence is in our spiritual state –we find ourselves in long, dark nights of the soul to quote St John of the Cross:
In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God. The soul that desires to walk in the light of God’s love must first be willing to endure the darkness.
But God sees beyond these battle scars and our brokenness and shamefulness. He sees each of us as complete, made in his image despite our losses, our griefs, our wrongs. So maybe what I need to be doing is accepting my brokenness, even embracing it:
Maybe wholeness is embracing brokenness as part of your life
(Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way: A Daring Path into Abundant Life p 136)
My good friend Sarah P Jose, author of New in the Middle, Facing Hardship and Moving Forward, talks about acceptance in chapter 8, Learning to Live:
Acceptance does not equal resignation, but it does cut off the power of shame at the root. Acceptance can be linked with a strong belief in the availability of life. God still offers a flourishing life to me, even with my weak and troublesome body. I need to learn how to take him up on his offer, even though it doesn’t look like the normal that I wanted back. This acceptance proved to be part of my internal healing. Acceptance, for me, means that I don’t have to sit around beating myself up for not having enough faith, not praying enough, or not exercising enough to become an able-bodied person again. Acceptance does not mean that I’m a half-miracle. Acceptance means that I have strong faith that my ongoing pain does not discount me or make me a bad Christian. Acceptance means the time has come to get on with the business of living, using my hard-earned insights into pain, hardship, and perseverance for the sake of God’s kingdom.
(Jose, Sarah. New In The Middle: Facing Hardship and Moving Forward (pp. 147-148). Kindle Edition.)
Brokenness is the first step towards recovery, understanding that, yes, I am broken and, yes, I need mending. But step 2, acceptance, follows closely on the heels of step 1 – acceptance that mending does not mean a return to what my life was before. I cannot get my larynx back; I cannot get my left breast back. If you failed an exam, you cannot just keep going as if nothing happened. If your partner has left you, life will not be the same. Being made redundant means your pathways will have to change.
Acceptance means knowing the time has come to put grief, shame, pity parties, etc. behind us and get on with the business of living our new normal. We can be the new and special someone that was always part of God’s plan for us. Read what else Sarah says about acceptance:
Accepting what we can’t do opens the door to contentment. (p. 164)
Please remember that acceptance of limitations forms the first step to freedom from being defined by those limitations. (p.165)
Acceptance means that we can respond to another appeal from Jesus: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28) (p.166).
(Jose, Sarah. New In The Middle: Facing Hardship and Moving Forward, Kindle Edition.)
Acceptance is focussing on what I can do and not what I can’t – I chose the photo accompanying this post carefully from my own photo album to remind myself of my recent trip to France and Singapore. I may have a hole in my neck, I may breathe through it and sound like Leonard Cohen when I speak but I can travel and see the world.
Acceptance also means learning to love yourself just as you are, or, as Jesus puts it in Matthew 22:9, Love your neighbour as yourself. We all know we need to love our neighbours (even our enemies) so, ipso facto, we must love ourselves first. There is no point to pining after what was or what could have been because that leads, at best, down the rabbit hole of resignation and, at worst, self-rejection. Acceptance of our disabilities, our current circumstances, and that God loves us and accepts us as we are, not as we were, means we can begin that journey towards loving ourselves.
Prayer: Lord, it is not always easy to live with the new limitations my illness has placed on me. I struggle some days with acceptance and begin to spiral down the rabbit hole of resignation. In these times remind me of who you are, my sovereign God. Carry me through those times and lift me out of the pit of despair. Set my feet on solid ground. Give me a new song to sing. (Psalm 40:1-3)
Amen
Action: Today come to Jesus, lay down whatever you are carrying, accept yourself as you are, and know assuredly that Jesus will give you perfect rest as you move into this new stage of your life.
Journal your thoughts…
