Acceptance

Six years ago Sargent Shriver at the age of 87 was diagnosed with Alzheminer's. His daughter Journalist Maria Shriver has produced a four part series on HBO called "The Alzheimer's Project" that is airing this month. You can watch it at http://www.alz.org/index.asp.

Shriver's children told her, "Just talk to Grandpa. Just go with whatever he is saying. Don't try to correct him, don't get mad. It's not him. Just laugh with him or just accept him, or be patient with him."

Says Maria, "What I've learned from my own children . . . . is to accept the person for who they are, not for who you want them to be or who you remember them to be."

So much of life involves acceptance. I love this quote shared in a workshop I once attended (author unknown):

Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation--some fact of my life--unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in this world by mistake. . . . Unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

Lord, as with the Serenity Prayer, help me to accept the things I cannot change. Thank you for the wonderful love of my husband and help him to always trust and feel my love. Amen.