I am pretty sure that surrender to God's will was the first thing I did in recovery. I didn't know what that even meant since I didn't believe in God. But desperation is a really useful thing.
When I get in a tight spot now, I conveniently (or inconveniently) forget about surrender. But in order to have radical acceptance where I accept myself and everything else in the universe as being exactly the way it is supposed to be, I have to first surrender - to the truth - that God is the boss and not me.
Why Accept Everything?
Well, for starters, fighting reality, fighting things that I'm powerless to change, complaining incessantly about the way things are, got me absolutely nowhere in my life. With the spiritual practice of acceptance, I've gained huge amounts of peace of mind.
How is it possible to accept EVERYTHING?
I think it's possible because of God's grace. I believe I am in God's care and I remind myself of this every day. My dear spiritual mother used to ask me, "Did you turn your life and your will over to the care of God this morning?" When I said, "yes," she would say, "Then everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be."
Of course, the first several times she said that, I got really angry because things were happening that I did not like and that I thought were WRONG! After awhile I began to suspect that she might be right. After some more time passed, I realized that the more I acceptance I had, the more joy and peace I had.
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