as Christ accepted me

안녕하세요. 김송영입니다.
한글을 못써서 QT with Jesus 를 영어로 나눔니다

February 7<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. (Romans 15:7 NIV)

The call is to accept each other, but we are to accept in the same manner that Christ has accepted me. Therefore the first question is to know how Christ accepted me. The more I know the acceptance of God, the more I can accept others. Meditating on God's acceptance this morning, somehow took me back almost 20 years ago.

I was in Japan at the time, going through one of the most darkest hour of my life. I was physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted with no peace and no rest.  One day I went to an acquaintance's home on an errand.  Arr<?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" /> <?xml:namespace prefix = w ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" />iving at her house, she had me wait in her house while she went out. So I sat in her living room and waited for her return. Hers was not a fancy house but there was a garden and there were children's toys scattered. This was a home where people enjoyed the garden and where children played. And then a profound longing rose within me, and I cried out to God: "How I wish that I had a home like this."

Just as this memory resurfaced, the realization that I was, now in fact, sitting in my home, looking out to my garden hit me afresh. Then I saw that God heard and remembered my heart's cry for a place of peace and rest that lonely and painful time of my life. What is more, God interpreted my cry as a cry for rest, not a cry from greed.

God accepts me by remembering my past. God remembers not to condemn but to honor and to respond to my longing. Then, there was no verbal communication, but silence and a moment of peace that carried my worn out soul. God accepts me by silence. Silence of empathy and fellowship that communicates "I am remembering";  not the indicting silence of "thou shalt not covet."

This is how I am to accept others - by fellowship, by empathetic listening and by  remembering with a heart of  compassion and honor, even after the moment passes.