The benefits of Acceptance

Guess what? My two year anniversary, June 21^st, passed and I didn’t even notice! That’s the day in 2010 when I accepted the reality that the disease had gone too far for me to continue trying to drive or work. I choose to believe that is a sign of progress – too busy living today to think about stuff from the past! Yeah, let’s say that.

So what am I doing in my new circumstance?  Not much!  I am continuing my lessons on living with grace. I may have said it before, but it bears repeating:

 

Acceptance is a huge part of grace.

Acceptance is not admired as much as it probably should be. It is only seen as a goal in the stages of grief – Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance, and in reading books on grief, usually speaking about the death of a loved one, it is seen as elusive. I guess it is bantered about in today’s culture a little, one should accept the ones who don’t quite fit the norms of society, but not much is regularly stated about taking an honest look at your life and accepting yourself, warts and all. In terms of introspection, we are all about “overcoming our limitations” and “never saying never!”

But I say if you want to live in grace, you have to first accept your reality. I have not always been good at this. Frankly, I don’t much care for my reality, and have longed for the days when I was doing good things for a good company, was part of the dynamic team of people making things happen, was respected for my God-given skills, and wore pretty clothes every day. Oh, and going to lunch at pretty places! But I digress.

Came across this picture on Facebook recently, and though I've seen it before, I finally understood what Mr. Hale was saying. It appeared the day after I was witness to some odd activity outside my apartment during that string of 95 degree days we had in July. A young lady, a young man and a baby kept walking past my slider door. The adults looked to be in their early 20s. The girl was on the phone, the guy was carrying the toddler. Back and forth they walked, and I didn’t recognize them as neighbors. After awhile, a police car pulled up and spoke with the girl and I heard her exclaim “I don’t know what to do!” through tears. Using my walker, I went out to the girl and offered her a seat on my porch, which was shaded. She then told me of her hardship – she wasn’t getting any response from a relative who lived in my building – and in fact, the lady had passed away in her apartment. Then the guy came back with the baby and told the girl that it was too hot to sit in the car, so I got them some ice water and invited them into my air-conditioned home.  It wasn’t very long before the police were finished and the little family could go.

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something.

And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.

I might still wish for the exhilaration I got from doing cool things with neat people in a corporate office somewhere, but I am grateful that neither my health nor my longing for what “should have been” kept me from doing something to help strangers in a time of need. I like to think that my ability to accept my reality made it possible for God to use me, just where I am. Maybe my reality isn't that bad after all.