What does acceptance and surrender mean to you? Does it sound like being ok with an awful situation, or accepting abuse and poor treatment?
Acceptance, in my mind, means surrendering to the current facts of a situation. Instead of fighting, pulling away, being in denial or rejecting the current state of reality... just acknowledge it. Acknowledge and take an honest look at the way things are. Simple awareness and the practice of noticing what is really happening in and of itself is very powerful. It's a type of letting go.
Awareness is not trying to reject a situation, cling, change, escape, or do anything to it. You are just looking at it in the eye and being honest about everything that it is. This in itself is a strange form of letting go. When we can look at something without fighting against or clinging to it, we are just 'standing with it.' By 'standing with it' you are no longer really being impacted by it in the same way, you aren't reacting to it. And it's our reactions which cause us so much pain and suffering much of the time.
The quote in the image "the best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain" (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) is really referring to the issues of how we resist, fight against or cling to things. Surrender and acceptance is actually a gift we give ourselves. It's the gift of non-reaction, and just experiencing things as they are. It means being in the present moment and living, embracing and appreciating life no matter what's happening. It doesn't mean you don't decide to take action and make changes. But it does mean you stop participating in chaos and reacting to things out of your control.