Eleven years ago this day our nation was brutally assaulted by enemies that wished to do our nation great harm.  It was a day of horror and disbelief, but also a day that ushered in a great sadness for the thousands of lost lives and the hundreds of thousands who had direct links with those who died.  Losses of this magnitude cannot be totally comprehended, but we all felt some sense of loss in our own way. 

Dealing with loss is the process of grieving.  Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, in her classic book On Death and Dying, gives the stages of grieving: 1) Denial, 2) Anger, 3) Bargaining, 4) Depression, and finally 5) Acceptance.  My first response to 9/11 was flat out denial.  My wife and I were in Hilton Head, SC, on vacation and I refused to even respond to the first reports of disaster.  My response was totally selfish: please, not on my vacation!  My second major response was indeed anger.  I was so angry at… but who was there to be angry at initially?  Osama Bin Laden was not a known name to me, and so what I was left with was raw anger with no place to land.  Bargaining was not one of my major responses until I saw the thousands of family members searching for missing loved ones.  I bargained vicariously, asking God to have some father or brother or uncle just show up out of the bowels of the New York City subway system.  Few, if any, did. I did join in the corporate and national depression.  It was too sad, too awful, and I just wanted to sleep it off, imagine it gone.  I was sad for days on end.  And finally, acceptance.

Acceptance is ultimately an act of faith.  It is a faith that says that God is still somehow in control in a terribly fallen and broken world.  Faith in knowing that He will still turn this tragedy into triumph, make beauty from ashes. However, this does not take the pain away, it just makes it into something that is meaningful and surprisingly beautiful.  Whatever your loss, whatever your drama, the final act of acceptance is the demonstration of humility to a Divine Will that in the final act give love, grace, and heaven itself.  The Old Testament blessing sums it up best: “May the Lord bless you and keep you; may He make His face to shine upon you; may He lift up His countenance and be gracious to you.”  May He indeed…. Amen.

Jim

In this line of work I read and recommend a lot of different books covering a variety of different issues. There is one book that I have found myself referring to a lot lately by Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection.” Quite frankly, it is pretty great. In a clear and easy to read way, Brene asks us to own our story, to stop beating up on ourselves, and waiting to love who when are “when”. You are familiar with the burdensome “WHEN”.  It goes like this, “I’ll be happy WHEN...” “I’ll love myself WHEN...” “I’ll relax WHEN...” and then the list follows. The problem is that this burdensome list is neverending. For example, 10 pounds turns to 15, always follwoed by another task. We will always fail at something.

The trick is to learn, somehow, to embrace yourself NOW. Face yourself and all your imperfections and accept it all while expecting others to do the same. Then you are no longer striving to be accepted and loved, you are simply striving to be the best version of you. The difference is astonishing. Striving to be loved has a panic feeling attached to it, hurry up or they may not love you anymore. Don’t mess up or it's all over. Striving to be the best version of you allows for mistakes and failures along the way. It has a pace that is do-able and even fun. Sure its easier said than done, but starting the journey towards acceptance is far better than staying in the cycle of “when’s”. 

Julia