Expanded Serenity Prayer

[Childofmine]

I saw this on another recovery site. It builds on the Serenity Prayer and puts some more meat on its bones. Always great by itself, however. I believe in the line "accepting hardship as a pathway to peace" as the silver lining of this awful journey that many of us are on with our addicted adult children. I don't believe I would have ever done this hard work on myself without my son's addiction; my ex-husband's alcoholism wasn't the catalyst, although it laid the groundwork.

"The Serenity Prayer is a well known spiritual tool used in 12 Step recovery whose origins are unclear. Most attribute the prayer to the Christian (Protestant) theologian, Rheinhold Niebuhr (Karl Paul Rheinhold Niebuhr, 1892-1971). Here is a long version of Niebuhr's prayer, with some Christian context:

"God, give us 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."

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I love it.

Thank you.

Isn't it something, to think those very same words and images we found so comforting have been used, and have brought comfort, for centuries.

I love being human.

Cedar