dailydatewithgod

I used to think that if I could just understand something or someone I would be able to accept it or them.  Conversely I spent a lot of energy trying to get people to understand me in order to gain acceptance.  It often felt like an uphill battle.  There are many things and people I do not, nor will not ever understand no matter how hard I try.  I simply cannot see things from their perspective and even if I am able to, it doesn’t always make sense to me. When I learned the principle element of acceptance my life began to change.  If I wait for understanding it may never come, but if I walk in acceptance, understanding becomes independent of it.  I practice acceptance and sometimes experience understanding. I do not understand why I was sexually abused by my father.  As far as I can tell, abuse on any level should never be understandable.  However,  I have learned to accept it.  It comes back to the serenity prayer.  God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.  I used this prayer as a guiding principle in my life.  Serenity is the state of our being at our core.  I ask God to grant me the serenity to accept that I cannot change my past. I ask God for the courage to change my present behaviors and reactions that from my adaptation to the abuse in my thinking and way of being.  Lastly, I ask God for the wisdom to know when it is something I can change and something I cannot.  In my thinking mind I want to understand and rationalize, but God knows the way to get me to connect to my heart and it is acceptance.  I often fall for the misleading idea that if I understand something I can make it different.  No amount of understanding can change my past.  I walk in acceptance with God’s help one day at a time and choose to courageously live my life with the past in the past and be who I truly am at my core in the present.  My heart life’s vitality allowing me to be the greatest expression of myself and see the greatest expression of others is independent of understanding.