Acceptance
By VINCENT P. COLLINS
® Abbey Press ©
Reprinted
with permission of Abbey Press
These
various "home remedies"-blaming everybody, self-pity
and the rest-have but one result: they make everybody including
ourselves more miserable and add to our difficulties without
solving them. Shall we "curse God and die”? No.
Do
what the politician does: "If you can't beat 'em, join
‘em!" If you can't solve your problems, learn to live
with them and in spite of them.
"Oh
sure, sure; just like that! All very well to say 'learn to live
with them,' but it's another thing to do it! Just how do you go
about doing that?"
Very
simple, my friend; so simple you wouldn't try it unless you were
desperate. If you are desperate enough, you'll try anything. So
try something that works- try acceptance!
Acceptance
is the only real source of tranquility, serenity, and peace. It
is also known as "Surrender," "Bowing to the
Inevitable," "Joining 'em." It can be acquired if
you have an urgent desire to help yourself and are willing to ask
God to help you.
Luckily
for us, the perfect formula for acceptance, simple and practical
as a can-opener, is ready at hand, waiting for us to use it as
hundreds of thousands before us have. Written by Reinhold
Niebuhr, it is known far and wide as "The Serenity
Prayer."
Here
it is:
"God
grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage
to change the things I can; and Wisdom to know the
difference."
You
simply ask God to give you the ability to take people and things
as they are, if you cannot change them. We can very seldom change
people, though we can change ourselves. We ask God, further, to
enable us to convince ourselves that we would not have things
otherwise, even if we could. Only God is powerful enough to
control all things, and He seems to prefer to make some things
come out right without changing them.
In
practice: face up to the problem; that is driving you wild, and
say, "Is there anything I can do about it right now,
today?" If there is, do it! Don't put it off another minute.
If there is nothing you can do about it today, accept it and
forget it.
You don't get over a twenty-foot wall by banging your head against it-you just get a headache. If you sit down in the shade of the wall and say, "Maybe I'm better off on this side, after all," you may be sure that God will make things turn out better for you and for everyone else. This ability of His to make things work out for the best is known as Divine Providence, or " "The Kindness of God."
Acceptance-The
little booklet that has changed lives --- millions of them!
