Acceptance

(My dad as a little boy. How cute is he?!

Dad- bet you're wondering how I got this. I'm sneaky.)

I am in my mid-twenties, a place that feels like the beginning of the transition from young and sparkling to adulthood and expectations of maturity. I am realizing that some of my assumptions about aging are not true. The me I envision in the future is much kinder and more thoughtful, finds time to write letters to family and friends, sits in a sunshiny garden and reads, hosts parties and never avoids visiting with friends, returns all emails and phone calls the day they are received, prays for everything she wants to and everything she says she will, eats chocolate cake and never feels fat. For years I have been idealizing my future self, and becoming disappointed by how little I really change. When will I become this perfect me I imagine?

While reading tonight, I came across this passage:

"Grace strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: 'You are accepted.... Do not seek for anything, do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.'"

The Shaking of the Foundations, Paul Tillich

I have heard my dad say, while looking at old pictures, that he still feels like the boy he once was though his body has changed. For better or worse, I am me. I will very likely be me for the rest of my life. And God calls me- the me I am right now- worthy and loved.