You have no items in your cart. Want to get some nice things?
Go shopping*
Surrender is ongoing.
Remember.
The more you expect things to be a certain way,
the more disappointed you’ll be when they’re not.
Accept life as it is.
You’ll be free.
— Maxime Legace
There’s a verb tense used in the Christian Bible called “present perfect.”
Even though they are often translated in only ONE tense with a helper verb like “has” or “had”, these verbs actually represent ALL THREE, showing a relationship between the past, present, and future.
It’s defined in this way:
The present perfect reflects the past, but its reflection on the past connects the past to the present. The present perfect is often used to express a past event that has present consequences. The events described by present perfects are not necessarily completed.
So, this means the present perfect tense can express an action which has begun in the past, continues to the present, and may continue into the future.
For instance, the verse “…God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace,” would be more accurately translated like this:
“…God, who once saved, is saving, and will continue saving us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we did, are doing, or will do but because of his own purpose and grace,” (2 Timothy 1:8-9)
Here’s where I’m going with this:
When you have a chronic condition—
and, heck, LIFE is a chronic condition, is it not?—
verbs like
accept
surrender
consent
release
yield
receive
acknowledge
ARE ALL LIVED IN THE PRESENT PERFECT TENSE.
I HAVE accepted that I have a chronic illness.
I DO, today, accept my chronic illness and its limitations in this moment.
And I WILL, in the future, have to CONTINUE to accept my chronic illness in a multitude of new and different ways.
Like so much else in life,
acceptance or surrender is not a one-time thing.
REMEMBERING this saves us much suffering.