Acceptance

What do you think acceptance means? I think that most often we think it means resignation. It doesn't. It means getting up, standing up in the face of something new or unknown. It means doing battle, fighting for the next right step. It is creating hope, accepting the challenge of changed circumstances. It is working through fear with a firm reliance on Divine Providence. Helen Keller is the best example of true acceptance. She did not just turn her face to the wall and refuse to try. No, she worked and worked to catch the meaning in her tudor's signing in her hand when sight and sound were denied her.

Coming to acceptance is a process as outlined by Elizabeth Kubler Ross: from denial to anger, from anger to bargaining, from bargaining to depression and finally from depression to acceptance. Don't be surprised if you are somewhere in that process now. Many life changes cause us to have to work through this cycle. I think our coming economic earthquake will cause many to have to work through the process when they would rather not.

There was an unattributed poem among my Grandpa Beach's papers called, "In Acceptance Lieth Peace" and it jas been a favorite of mine. It's words are timeless and apply as much to us as to the one who wrote it.

He said, "I will forget the dying faces;
The empty places
They shall be filled again,
O voices moaning deep within me, cease."
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in forgetting lieth peace.

He said, "I will crowd action upon action,
The strife of faction
Shall stir me and sustain;
O tears that drown the fire of mankind cease."
But vain, the word; vain, vain:
Not in endeavour lieth peace.

He said, "I will withdraw me and be quiet,
Why meddle in life's riot?
Shut be my door to pain. Desire, thou dost befool me, thou shalt cease."
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in aloofness lieth peace.

He said, "I will submit; I am defeated.
God hath depleted
My life of its rich gain.
O futile murmurings, why will ye not cease?"
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in submission lieth peace.

He said, "I will accept the breaking sorrow
Which God tomorrow
Will to His son explain."
Then did the turmoil deep within him cease.
Not vain the word; not vain:
For in acceptance lieth peace.