I will, I will accept myself With hope and fear and wonder And what I have joined together Let no man put asunder. --Dory Preven
There is a wonderful freedom in acceptance. When we accept ourselves, with all our imperfections, we can then begin to accept others just as they are. This is especially exciting when we apply this discovery to our own families. A family is like a bouquet of flowers arranged in a common vase. Each flower is different. One might be blue, one white, one a rose, one a chrysanthemum. But each adds to the beauty of the whole bouquet and enhances the vase that holds it.
It isn't important that we know why one flower is blue and one white. We don't have to understand how a rose becomes a rose to appreciate the arrangement. We just accept it for what it is. Acceptance of others does not mean agreement or approval. How boring if we only accepted those who reflected our own ideas and opinions! How dull to look upon a bouquet of exactly the same flowers.
Today, will I accept the differences between us as part of our beauty together?
Young man, the secret of my success is that at an early age I discovered I was not God. --Oliver Wendell Holmes
Sometimes, in our families, we try to get parents or brothers or sisters to treat us the way we want them to, to do things we want them to. When they're upset or angry with us, we try to get them to stop, rather than allow them to be angry.
But our feelings are ours alone, and we are responsible only for how we feel. Those around us are not the cause of our feelings. We are.
This knowledge is a big responsibility, because we know we cannot blame others for our bad moods. But it is a fact. And this fact is also a wonderful freedom for us, for it means that we also have the power to make ourselves happy, no matter what goes on around us.
