Hope & Acceptance
When I was little, a family friend lived with us for a time. Knowing I flitted and danced about the house with cartwheels and pointed toes, she purchased some wood and crafted a low balance beam for my birthday gift one year. I adored every inch of the narrow surface.
I have often thought of creating something similar for my daughter because what stays with me is the crucial lesson of balance. On the beam, gravity is quick to remind us when we’ve fallen off course, but in real life it’s harder to see. How can we tell when our natural leanings or life’s circumstances bend us too far one way or another, and how do we regain our balance? Can simply having an awareness of the opposite end of the spectrum from where we find ourselves provide just enough of a focal point to re-center ourselves? One arm stretched to the left, the other stretched to the right. One arm pointed to hope, the other to acceptance. Eyes and toes focused on moving forward.
Many years ago, my hope was so strong for a particular situation that I couldn’t let go of what was clear to so many others.
“You can’t put too much weight on it,” my mom said to me.
Things would not change anytime soon, and maybe not ever, but I felt I had to exhaust every resource and opportunity before I could fully surrender, accept, and move on.
As a person of faith, it was hard to let go, but as an optimist and believer in perseverance, it was even harder.
At some point in our lives, I imagine we all confront this tension between hope and acceptance. As if that could not be hard enough, we may also find ourselves surrounded by loved ones simultaneously fighting the same battle, yet they are on one end of the spectrum and we are on the other.
Unexpectedly, I stumbled into a conversation about this shared part of our humanity with another mom acquaintance while we waited on a sports field this spring. Although we had seen each other at town activities over the years and chatted a bit once about the ages of our kids and activities they were in, we generally merely smiled and waved in passing as busy moms often do.
On this day in particular, we found ourselves with a bit more time. Our conversation began with the usual topics of kids and activities, moved into work and the latest shows on Netflix, and eventually landed on where we grew up and if our parents still lived there. What could’ve been a run-of-the-mill conversation instead felt meant to be as I listened to this woman share about her father’s health diagnosis and death, still fairly fresh with only about a year’s passing of time.
Her youngest child scaled her and his quick movements, along with our swatting of mayflies, brought us in and out of the tender conversation.
“My mother’s hope in a miracle was so strong that she was in denial,” she mentioned with no judgment in her voice, just a bit of sadness and a heap of understanding.
“But denial is a form of grief,” she stated both gently and matter-of-factly.
I nodded, thinking of people and situations connected in my own life, some related to life and death on the grand scale and some focused on the death of relationships and dreams, which is less talked about in terms of grief, but distinctly significant.
Are we able to hold both hope and acceptance at the same time to maintain our balance? How do we reconcile our faith with acceptance? What happens when we are on a different timeline than our loved ones as we move through the grief process, and how do we maintain those relationships during the most difficult time in our lives?
In Psychology Today’s article Hope and Acceptance: Two Paths that Follow Loss, Deborah L. Cabaniss M.D. acknowledges balancing an understanding of the important role hope can play, such as with the civil rights, women’s suffrage, and climate protection movements, with the caution that denial can cause us to live as prisoners to the past.
She outlines four tips to help us along: keep hope realistic (someone who has died is gone), separate specific and general loss (losing a partner or a job now still means you can experience new love or a new career in the future), develop self-awareness of how much space you are giving hope to measure if it’s reasonable, and connect with others to join efforts if you are advocating for positive change in the world.
“Acceptance and hope are both natural responses to loss. Sometimes we need to embrace one, sometimes the other, and sometimes both. Although there’s no recipe, if we’re honest about the loss and our feelings, we can take the path that will help us to continue to live and grow,” Dr. Cabaniss says.
Perhaps no one experiences the extremes of hope and acceptance more than those who face illness. In a study with terminally ill cancer patients, approved by the Institutional Review Boards of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Calvary Hospital and Fordham University and published by the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, some patients experienced overwhelming hopelessness, others sought hope for a cure despite the existing evidence, and still others both acknowledged their prognosis and created hope for positive experiences.
Yet those holding onto hope, either fully or partially, may not see hope in the same way they once did. When defining hope, the study notes, “some researchers have found that hope at the end of life often refers to new targets, such as hope for comfort, dignity, intimacy, or salvation.”
While it may be difficult to relate to more extreme life and death circumstances, understanding, in any particular situation, that our definition of hope may need to shift to accommodate an expanded and transformed vision is life-changing.
Last fall my daughter peeked through a basket on my bookshelf.
“What is this?” she asked, picking up a jar filled with tiny yellow balls.
Years ago, I purchased a small bottle of mustard seeds in the spice aisle at the local grocery store and placed it in a prayer basket in my room alongside some daily reflection books and holy water. I eventually moved the seeds to a jelly jar and included inside a copy of a bible verse from Matthew 17:20 that I found in an inspirational notebook: “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible for you.”
I shared with my daughter the mustard seed verse and her nose scrunched up in confusion. “Huh?” she said.
Someday I will better explain to her how that jar represents the little bit of hope I keep tucked away—and not held too tightly—for situations in my life that I can no longer give so much of myself to, but for which I still want to create space. I realize today that a portion of my peace is also thanks to a shift in what hope meant for me then and what it means to me now.
Is something holding you back from hoping or accepting?
Are you being both self-aware and honest with yourself?
Is this impacting your relationships, and, if so, what is your role?
For related resources, see the prayer With Hope and Acceptance.