Acceptance and Forgiveness

What is a proper acceptance of life?  It is not to accept that our life is one of hopeless selfishness, and anger, and envy, the pigsty into which we may have fallen and made a place for ourselves.

Rather, it is to accept God as a loving father, who is full of tenderness and forgiveness for us, despite our willful blunders and hardened hearts. He yearns for us, as a father and mother yearn for the return of their most beloved child.

It is to accept that we are not lost, we are not abandoned.  We are wandering like a wayward child, full of our own headstrong delusions.  And our father waits expectantly, calling out for us through the darkness,sending the spirit out to find us, a light for us to find our way home to him out of the night.

It is to accept that his door is always open, and that he will not abandon us, until he has at last welcomed us into his house.

How do we return to him? Talk to him. He is always listening. He delights in our presence, and notes everything about us, as a loving parent does to a sleeping child. His love is boundless, but will not overwhelm us. Because that is how deep his love is for us.

God is our loving father.  If only we will accept it, and accept our life as it truly is meant to be, beyond the images and the shadows of the world.  For he has already humbled himself, and in his loving forgiveness laid down his life for us.   What more can we ask, what additional proof of his love can we require of him? ?