Lenten Meditation for Today : Acceptance
“Acceptance remains among the hardest things asked of us. The price is always high, but in the face of what we would never choose and cannot change, it provides a way forward. We needn’t worry if we don’t always get it right. In our willingness to stay engaged, God knows that we’re all in. Our capacity to love will grow, and through us, God will work quiet miracles that keep hope alive, even in troubling times. Our lives are full of unforeseen choices, struggles, and callings. Sometimes we can overcome these obstacles, and sometimes we must make peace with them. Sometimes, like Jesus, we are called into the wilderness or to the cross—to physically and spiritually go to those places that challenge us, test us, break us open, and cause something to die within us. {{Accepting what we did not choose involves a leap of faith that God is present and at work in ways that we cannot comprehend.}} Sometimes we feel that presence; oftentimes we don’t. This kind of acceptance is not passive or fatalistic, but rather a courageous choice at a decisive moment to embrace the places we are broken as an integral part of a courageous life”
~from Sermon of Bishop Mariann Budde, January 2025