Serenity Prayer

 

Most of us are familiar with the Serenity Prayer:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

This short prayer is one of the most cherished in America, if not in the whole world.  It can be found in many forms—bookmarks, wall plaques, bumper stickers, and collections of inspirational poetry.  Millions pray it each day in Twelve-Step recovery programs and millions more use it to help sort through the stressful issues in their lives.      

But many people are not familiar with the second part to this beautiful prayer that is essential to living the first part. Here it is:

--Living one day at a time;    

--enjoying one moment at a time;

 --accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

--taking, as God did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;

--trusting that God will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;

--that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with

   Him  forever in the next.”

This seldom-quoted second part really contains the ingredients for living the first part well.  For we are more serene:

-- when we live one day at a time and enjoy one moment at a time;

--when we calmly accept things as they are, not as we would have them;

--when we trust that God will make all things right if we surrender to His will;

--when we realize that our ultimate happiness is not to be found in this world but 

     in Heaven.

Serenity.  Peace.  Each of us longs for these gifts.  The wisdom of the Serenity Prayer is that it puts our longing into words and shows us ways to Serenity: living, enjoying, accepting, trusting, surrendering.

 Serenely yours,

 Sister Loretta