Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Courage to Change the Things That Should be Changed

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.

Those who attend any Celebrate Recovery meeting or traditional 12 step meeting know that the Serenity Prayer is often said together as a group. If you want to read about the history behind this prayer, check out this blog post  http://recoveryboxapp.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-serenity-prayer-history-behind-it.html

I'm not going to say exactly what you should feel or think when you pray this prayer because your circumstance are different than mine - and prayers are personal.  But yesterday when I had my cup of apple cider and I saw the "Courage Mug"  (see yesterday's post if you are not up to speed) it reminded me of this prayer. 

"Courage to change the things that should be changed." The first time I ever read this prayer was at my grandmother's house. I didn't understand what it meant then being only 12 years old. Later in life I came to understand that my grandmother was an alcoholic and struggled a lot..perhaps that's why she had the prayer in her house. It's a shame because I can't ask her  what the prayer meant to her because she suffers from Alzheimers. So I can only speculate.

The line I find intriguing especially as someone who wants to solve everyone's problems is "the Wisdom to distingush one from another".  That's what I need to work on. I have got to figure out what is mine to change and what is mine to leave for others. Perhaps it sounds so easy but not for someone who deals with CoDepenedency. 

So today, there is no verse but rather I pray the Serenity Prayer and ask for the wisdom to know the difference.