Acceptance Takes Us Past Denial and Into Peace

"God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change..."
from The Serenity Prayer

Denial is unbelievably complex. I’ve just made a plane reservation to go home because my father is on his deathbed. Part of me understands I need to go home tomorrow and part of me is saying “Why did you just book a plane reservation. Everything is going to be OK. He’ll make it. You don’t need to go home.” But—in reality-- he’s not going to make it. His lungs are shot, his kidneys are shutting- down and there’s really no hope. Yet there’s something in my brain that’s creating its own little safe picket-fence reality— some sort of disbelief that says everything is normal in your safe little world. This is denial.

I’ve never felt denial so strongly before, or maybe I’ve just never before been so conscious as to what is really happening in my brain. In the past, I wouldn’t have understood that the tug of war inside me was between reality as I want it to be (denial) and reality as it really is (truth). Maybe I’m not ready to feel like an orphan yet (My mother died in 1993), or maybe I have too many unresolved issues or unsaid words to accept my father’s pending death. Or maybe I need to have the picket-fence reality still be there in the future when I visit home.

I feel like a ball of combustible energy that needs to explode. I want to say “This shouldn’t be happening.” But it is. So I have to accept the reality of life and death and surrender my powerlessness over death to God. I have no control over what’s happening with my father’s health and I can’t save him from death. I can’t even save myself from it. Accepting that we are all so powerless in matters of life and death is very difficult. I think this is part of the reason we humans work so hard to keep ourselves and loved ones alive medically. But there’s only so much any of us can do. Sooner or later, we have to let go and trust God.

It’s important to trust that God will do what’s best for us and those we love. And it’s hard to let go of the need to control outcomes, but it’s necessary. We can have no peace until we accept our limitations—the fact that we are so powerless over much in life—and surrender them to God. It takes great faith to surrender, let go and trust that God will make all things right in the long run. But it’s the only way to successful live from day to day.

If you are struggling with something as I am now, be aware of any denial that is trying to hide or sugarcoat the truth. Accepting the truth, surrendering our loss of personal power to God and trusting that God will always do what’s best is the true path to peace. Denial is a band-aid. Sooner or later we will have to accept reality. Surrender and allow your soul to shine.

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