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--
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.
