You may have seen the movie "Groundhog Day," in which Bill Murray put in a wonderful performance as a weatherman who finds himself stuck reliving the same day over and over. But did you know that the stages that the weatherman go through are based on the stages of dying that were delineated by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross? The screenwriter, Danny Rubin, had Bill Murray's character develop by going through Kübler-Ross's five stages of death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

The interesting thing about those stages is that, as Rubin suggested in his story, they can also lead to life.

On many levels, one could say that every day, we wake up to the same world. We're the same person in the morning, for one thing—we can't completely make ourselves over overnight. We wake up to the same family; the same friends overall; and, most times, the same home and job. Even if we can change our personality to some degree, we can't change our past. The most extreme plastic surgery couldn't really change what we see in ourselves when we look in the mirror.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression—I've gone through all those stages in the past. Before I found my current career, I spent years denying that I had chosen a career that couldn't support me. I've suffered from anger—at God and at myself—over not being where I wanted to be in life. Before I had faith, I tried to bargain with God, saying that I'd believe in Him if He did some particular thing to satisfy my wants. And I've suffered from depression—a lonely, isolated depression where I felt as though the rest of the world were progressing and I was stuck every day in the same depressing body, the same depressing personality, the same depressing rut.

Those first four stages progress naturally; one doesn't need any kind of push to get from denial to anger and so on. But that last stage—acceptance—for me required a kickstart. That kickstart was a faith experience—something that made the radio in my head stop waking me up every morning to the same old song.

Except that, in my case, when I woke up to find it was February 3, there was no Andie MacDowell by my side.

Well, actually, I'm relieved she wasn't there—she's not my type. But there was no instant Mr. Right in my life once I was healed from depression. I was on my own.

The word "acceptance" as we use it implies placid submission. But its root comes from the Latin for "to receive." For the act of acceptance to be ongoing, we have to take an active and continual role in it.

What this means is that instead of an ongoing Groundhog Day where our actions have no continual effect, we have the opportunity every day to receive something that is in some way different from what we were offered the day before. Even if it seems the same, it's different because the world has progressed another 360 degrees, and we with it.

This is what the prophet Jeremiah means when he writes that God's mercies are "new every morning."

In my own life, I am beginning to see that acceptance means freedom—not just freedom from depression, but freedom from the myriad of personal barriers that have prevented me from appreciating life's blessings.

I have spent many years of my life lamenting being single. The wisdom of recent years has shown me that, until recently, I was not mature enough to be a godly wife. Likewise, I now see that I haven't let my intended pass me by—I'm certain that I haven't met him yet. Even so, in the past, knowing those things couldn't prevent me from feeling sorry for myself.

But today I had a strange feeling. I realized that, like Bill Murray in the film, I can get up every day confident that the odds are against my meeting my intended. It's not cynicism, but an awareness of being in a situation that I can't control. And I realized that, as in the film, such knowledge is power.

Think about it. If you realized every day that the odds were against your getting something you wanted, you'd have two options. You could give up, resigning yourself to your fate. Or you could conduct your life the way you wanted, enjoying the great relief of no longer having to put so much hope and effort into attaining your goal.

Make no mistake—I still have hope. And I have no desire to use my liberty to become libertine. I just feel this wonderful freedom—freedom from having to go around as this pathetic overage single person who has to look at every conversation with an interesting single man as a possible prelude to a first date. I can speak to men not with bitterness or cynicism, but with utter confidence—treating them with the respect with which I would treat any human being, yet not worrying about the kind of impression I'm making.

Can I really do all this without secretly getting my hopes up that Mr. Right will come along? Of course not! But even if I can get myself to accept a tiny bit of the freedom God gives me in His morning mercies, it will make a significant and very positive change in my life.

The interesting thing about this realization is that it appears mighty similar to the "self-actualization" gospel preached by Oprah and other self-help gurus. I myself tried to practice that in the past. The difference is that the self-actualization proponents try to fill people up by telling them that they are already full. God, by contrast, invites me to make a space in my heart and soul so that He can fill me.

That's something that nobody else can do—turn emptiness into a setting for blessing. He's like a director who can create an entire world starting from a bare and empty stage. I want to see what His imagination can create on mine.