Joy and I are moving into a new house. You’re going to hear a lot about it. You’ll probably get sick of me using moving into a new home as an illustration, but the experience has been full of amazing lessons. I’m hopeful that you’ll find value in them too.

Here’s one that really had me tangled up for a minute: A previous owner converted the attic into a nice guest bedroom. The folks who lived in the house prior to us had a full bed in that attic room. We knew it was possible. We envisioned our guest room furniture in that room.

And yet, when the movers arrived with our furniture, they said, “There’s no way a box spring for a full bed is going up those attic stairs.” That didn’t make sense. It had to be possible. The previous folks had a full bed up there. My mind didn’t want to accept the reality that our plan wasn’t going to work.

Of course, the movers were right. There was no way of maneuvering a full box spring into that upper bedroom. The good news is that there are other possibilities. The one we settled on is a clever metal frame that can be easily carried upstairs in pieces and assembled in the room.

I couldn’t see any other possibilities when I was wrestling with reality. As long as I insisted that things must go the way I expected, I couldn’t consider any other path forward. Reality doesn’t budge just because I don’t like it, though. Once I accepted that the box spring wasn’t going to go where I wanted it to, I could shift from resistance into curiosity. Once I embraced reality, I could find a new way. The same thing is true of so many things in life. I need to start from a place of accepting what is if I want to take meaningful action. If I resist what’s true about the world, or other people, or even myself, the conclusions I draw are flawed. When I embrace what is, I can find a way forward. I can create something new.

Rev. Randy Partain