Acceptance

I’ve had writer’s block since coming home from the hospital. I sit down to write, and my mind goes blank.  I get up to do something else, hoping that changing the scene will make a difference, but to no avail. Generally, such periods are short-lived lived, but this has been going on for several weeks.  Some days I go back through my files and rework something I’d written earlier but other times I just call it quits.

One thing is clear: The harder I am on myself, the more difficult the task becomes.  I can be my own worst enemy.

I’m not sure why I am so critical of myself when I hit these patches because that never helps. I want consistency and predictability, but life is anything but consistent and predictable.  In fact, it is filled with the unexpected.  I certainly did not expect to get sick, nor did I anticipate how long it would take to bounce back.  I expect the writer of Ecclesiastes may have been going through a similar time when he wrote his famous passage about the seasons of life.  Recognizing that life does not run in a smooth path,  he invites us to embrace these varying seasons of life rather than becoming anxious when things don’t go the way we expect.  

The challenge I face when I am feeling this way is disjointed, restless, and at loose ends. I’m giving myself permission to be restless, disjointed, at loose ends.  To accept what is rather than fixating on what I think should be.  These are the days for practicing gratitude for embracing the Serenity Prayer‘s approach to living.

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.  Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.  Taking as he did, the sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.  Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will so I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with him forever in the next.