Acceptance

I do a lot of cooking and baking over the holidays.

My husband and I are both fortunate enough to have an extended break, so I have the time to make more elaborate meals I might not otherwise manage.  Chicken and dumplings, homemade bison chili, beef bourguignon, candies, cookies: we have very full stomachs in the period leading up from Christmas to New Year’s.

Because of this, my husband likes to commandeer the dishes.

He reasons that it’s only fair: if I’m doing the cooking, he can do the dishes, and neither of us is too exhausted.  Normally we split the dishes labor—the winner of our daily Worldle game shoulders the burden—but at Christmas he has a tendency to take it on completely.

This is a complete pain.

By the time he gets to the sink it’s full: bowls I melted chocolate in, pans that have to be hand-washed, stoneware, our special plates and glasses…

It’s almost impossible for me to watch him do it. He goes to the sink and I putter along immediately after, cleaning up the kitchen around him and trying to put dishes away or help him put dishes into the dishwasher.  I feel guilty watching him work, even though I just did all the cooking; I often feel compelled to make myself useful.

And, yearly, he inevitably has to grab me by the shoulders, march me out of the kitchen and say, “Please let me do you this favor.  I am begging you to go sit.”

Can you tell I’m terrible at accepting things?

Gifts, compliments, gestures.  Someone tells me they like my purse and I will immediately tell them where I found it on sale or deprecate without even meaning to: “This old thing?  Really?”  I feel guilty when my husband picks up a chore.  I want to reciprocate gifts after I get them.

But my trouble with acceptance extends to the bigger and broader world as well.  I like to control outcomes.  I like to know what will happen.  I hate injustice and unfairness.  And whether I realize it or not, I am often either directly or directly trying to manipulate things to “good ends.”  I want outcomes to be fair and just.  I want to predict so I can prepare. 

This even extends to my relationship with God.  I often have a list of things I want God to do.  I have a sense of how I want God to meet me and what I want Him to teach me and what I need to be learning and doing.  I think I know how I need to encounter Christ.

And, as it turns out, much of the anxiety I have stems from what I can’t control: how healthy my pets are, how I age, what will happen to the plane I’m on, how the professional environment at my job will impact my career.  Metaphorically, I am perpetually sneaking into the kitchen, trying to impose my will on the dishes even though they’re going to be washed without my help.

As I come to the new year, then, I find myself thinking a lot about the concept of acceptance, generally.  What does it mean for us as Christians to accept what God gives us?  To stop imposing our own notions and wants about what we think is best?  How do we prepare for that mindset and cultivate that attitude? 

I know the answer isn’t hard.  It’s to sit down; to be quiet; to get out of the kitchen; to listen and watch.  But although this is simple in theory it can be devastatingly difficult in practice, especially for those of us who believe our efforts are required to make the world go round. It can be a labor not to try, not to grasp, not to determine and decide and act.

I hope to spend much of the new year approaching God in a way that to me feels radically different. Certainly not without requests and desires—I will always have those, and God wants me to be honest—but with an attitude of openness and curiosity that says, “What do you have for me today, and how can I welcome it, even if it’s tough?”  I want to be able to enter prayer willing to allow God to do the work on me in whatever way He sees fit, rather than decide what virtue or help I need to cultivate that day and demanding He get around to business.

I don’t know what the outcomes will be.  That’s what’s so scary.  That’s what motivates me to act and move and try so much in the first place.  But already, in small ways, I am starting to see that this is going to be so incredibly freeing.

What if I knew something was out of my control, and I was willing to just see what happened?

What if I showed up and asked God what He wanted to do with me?

What if I saw something not turning out like I hoped and was able to say with honestly, “Well, thy will be done”?

What if I let God pursue me rather than trying to wrestle Him down all the time?

What if I let go of being upset or anxious any time something doesn’t conform to my expectations?

And most of all–what might happen if I tear down my own fences, open my heart to receive what comes, and wait to see what God will do?

I’m eager to find out.