Accepting Differences

Acceptance. It’s what we want. We often live for it. But do we offer it? Not always. Instead, we tend to exasperate those who see life differently than we do.

It’s an easy fact: we’re all different. None of us share the exact experiences that would make us the same. Some come from comfortable home lives and solid families of origin, while others struggle with empty bellies and absentee parents. While we may look the same, go to the same schools or even read the same books, we’re often very different on the inside.

What would happen

What would happen if we recognized and eagerly shared–and accepted–our differences? Consider this … What if I saw, read, heard, or experienced life as you?  I bet I’d feel the same way as you do. And the same goes with you. If our experiences were the same, we’d be the same person.

I know harmony is mostly preferable over conflict. Being greeted with smiles is sweeter than scowls. But often a time comes … something happens … then POW out of nowhere, differences appear. Then conflict. It may be a social media post, a loose statement overheard. That’s when our feelings get hurt, or we hurt someone else’s feelings.

It’s sad

It’s sad, really. Because none of us are the same, inevitably if we allow it, a diverse thought will slip in and cause conflict.

How about this: Let’s celebrate our differences! Learn from one another. Don’t shy away from challenging conversations. Because, honestly, who else do we learn from than those who we love? And if we are different, let’s allow those differences to enhance our lives.

When Friends Accept Differences

Ladies of the Fire is a great example of friends accepting their differences. We’re brought to the late 1960s as we meet the newly-widowed Lily-Rose Pembrick reeling as she fled Lincoln, Nebraska, with her children. Only taking the cash from the house safe and what she could get her hands on at the family bank, she left the recently-inherited and successful Pembrick Transportation company behind. Exhausted from driving all night, she stopped in Applegate, Ohio, and decided to start a new life on Norwood Street. There, she met Fiona Kasey, an African-American no-nonsense housekeeper/companion to an elderly white woman, and Sugar Bowersox, a Southern spitfire who has lost herself in motherhood.

Together, they enjoyed Lily-Rose’s backyard fire pit, where dreams were spoken and secrets revealed. As they embraced a kinship they never would have sought, Lily-Rose began thinking her past could finally be laid to rest—until someone ended up dead.