What Does Acceptance Mean?

Isn't 100% acceptance of a spouse or loved one who is in darkness, dealing with addictions, compulsions, personal weaknesses, or living in opposition to the commandments* a kind of hopelessness that they will never be who they could be?  

*In other words, everyone.

Tough question.  And if this person is a spouse and their weaknesses impact you, it makes acceptance of that person and their accompanying weaknesses that much harder. Here are my thoughts.

What is the alternative to accepting?  Not accepting?  How do you do that?  I see two ways: One way is denial or non-recognition. Consider a country who refuses to recognize another country because they don’t agree with its principles or territory lines.  The other country exists in reality, a group of people has gathered and made a claim.  Refusal to accept it means, “We will pretend you don’t exist because we don’t like your or your actions.”  In this case, non-acceptance is refusing to recognize something as a reality because you don’t like the terms on which it exists. 

The second kind of non-acceptance is rejection—“Waiter, I don’t like this food, take it back.”   

So, in terms of non-acceptance of another person as they are today, it is simply refusing to accept reality as it is because we don’t like how they’ve “drawn their borders” and want them changed.  Worse, it can mean closing our eyes or turning our back so we don’t have to acknowledge that reality at all, like a family that disowns a child. 

Do you see another, Christian way to not accept a person? What am I missing?

I do argue for 100% acceptance as a critical component of unconditional love: charity, the pure love of Christ, and still hold that only this safe haven creates an environment where positive change can be fostered if it is to happen at all.

So, if you choose 100% acceptance of a flawed person, what does that mean--what are you accepting?  Some thoughts:

First and foremost, we completely accept and embraceTHEIR DIVINE NATURE—WHO THEY REALLY ARE.  We’ve been told if we could see our spouse (or anyone) for who they really truly are and as they were in the pre-existence, we would fall down before them in awe.  My aunt was blessed with a pre-existence vision of her drug/sex-addicted roommate and could never again see her without being overcome with amazing love and awe. When the roomate would stagger in late, my aunt felt no fear or anxiety, just amazement and honor to know her.  Her natural response was a compulsion to just love her and treat her like the divine princess she was, she surrounded her with the light of Christ.

We accept OUR ROLE in their life.  Some things are simply not our job, but we think they are.  Our job is to seek to see them as they really are and then shine our love and of the love of Christ on them.  We be their friend, we listen, we mourn when they mourn, and share their burdens, even when self-inflicted.  Yes, we are to cry repentance to every creature, and so we follow the Spirit in every communication, and never speak from anger or fear. We are to be a nurse and a teacher, but cannot determine the diagnoses or assign the grade.  Unless we are their bishop, we allow God to remain the judge and reserve the deciding, defining and judging to Him.  With His help, we turn our worry and fears into prayers, and our pain and victimhood into forgiveness, patience, compassion and understanding.

We accept GOD’S ROLE in their life.  We give over to Him what is not our job at all, but His: He will lead them along their life’s curriculum as much as they will allow Him to.  He will fill us with love for them, show us who they really are, and help us know what to say and do that will help them on their path if we seek his guidance, he will help us bear the pains of their choices with patience, compassion and forgiveness.  Since only He can measure the sum of their spirit, intents, heart, actions, thoughts, beliefs, experiences, disabilities, injuries, we leave all judgment--of who they are, what they should be doing and how/when they should be doing it, to Him--both now, and in the day of judgment. 

We accept THE PLAN for them.  In this life we’ve been given time.  We accept that this very moment doesn’t define a person, but recognize that they are a person in process just like us.  During this time, we will all sin and struggle with weaknesses throughout our lives, we will succeed and fail.  Others’ sins and weaknesses will hurt us.  We, and those around us, will try to repent, we will sometimes backslide, we will sometimes rebel.  In the end, we will all succeed in two goals: to gain a body, and to gain experience.  But we won’t all succeed in becoming perfect through Christ before we die—the scriptures make that clear--this is a big risk we all took in coming here.  While we don’t fully understand how progression after this life works and so much seems to hang in the balance that makes this a scary prospect, our only hope is to trust the plan, trust the planner, and just keep filling our role.

We accept THE ATONEMENT is in play for them.  While we can observe other’s poor choices and we can feel their impact on us, we can’t see who they are clearly, but through glass darkly, as Paul said.  Again, the sum of their intents, heart, actions, thoughts, beliefs, experiences, disabilities, etc., are in the hands of the Lord, and when all things are made right I’m sure there will be many surprises.  The atonement is always working in the lives of others to various extents we cannot even understand, we can only love and accept this flawed child of God and see, love and accept them for who they really are. 

We accept the commandment of FORGIVENESS for them.  When wronged by another’s weaknesses, we accept that Christ already paid that debt, and any recompense can only be collected from Him.  We go to the Lord to resolve our pain and gain patience, we trust He will do His part with them, then we go back to our role of shining the light of unconditional love.

We accept THEIR AGENCY.  While we can’t ever fully understand why people do what they do and choose what they choose, we respect their agency and don’t use manipulation, compulsion, emotional withholding to compel change.  We encourage progress simply by seeing and treating them as they really are and reflecting that true self to them.

We accept Christ’s constant admonition to FEAR NOT for them.  In the world He promised we would have tribulation, but he told us we should fear not because he has overcome the world.  If we unconditionally love and follow the Spirit as we interact with other fallen humans in a fallen world, we can trust that if we do our job, He will do His, and therefore there is nothing to fear.  But, if another's positive change and repentance depends solely on us pushing them through it by withholding our acceptance, voicing disapproval or generally trying to pull out their mote for them—now that’s both the cause for fear and the result of fear. 

We accept HOPE IN CHRIST—we are not told to have hope in anything but Christ.  We simply can’t place our hope in other people.  That’s not to say we are hopeless for them, no, because we see them as they really are and know they already are amazing children of God walking a difficult path in a fallen world.  But we can hope in Christ--that the He is working with them in ways we can’t see, that only He fully understands the situation, and that if we follow His Spirit He will help us to help them in His way—by loving them, seeing who they really are, and acting in the Spirit. We hope in Christ's promise that no matter where our flawed loved one is on the path today, they can in an instant make it the starting point on the path to Him.

That is how I define acceptance.  We don't have to like what they do, we don't have to resign ourselves to the idea that this moment reflects who they are, but we do need to accept reality as it is and people for who they are. As I see it, anything less is prideful delusion.

This calls for some other future posts:

HOW DID CHRIST SHOW LOVE TO SINNERS?

WHAT DOES MY SPOUSE OWE ME?

YOUR SPOUSE IS NOT YOUR CHILD.