Acknowledging and accepting our actual, lived-in lives and experience is often much easier said than done. It's like our if-only's become our what-should-be's—how we should feel, what we should do, the type of response we should have—and when our reality doesn't match that ideal, well, we turn to filters and facades, forcing ourselves into molds that don't actually fit. And living that way is exhausting. Perhaps you know the feeling?

Well, one of the greatest gifts I have received through the work and ministry of spiritual direction is compassionate permission to welcome what is and not what I think should be. To honor the full spectrum of my experience, whether I like it or not. Whether I hope it will change or not.

I'm learning that a practice of welcome means a practice of being honest before God, trusting that God is present and at work in our actual experience, and that through such a welcome, God can and will engage the sacred work of transformation.

Today, I hope you'll listen in and join me as, together, we welcome what is.

Dr. Larry Crabb

Soulful Spirituality by David Benner

Rumi's The Guest House

The Gift of Being Yourself by David Benner

Father Thomas Keating

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