dar334

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.

The first time I remember hearing this poem was in 1974 when our class representatives were deciding on possibilities for our class motto, we were finally seniors!  I don’t remember what our other choices were but I do remember one of our representatives running down the hall yelling for us to vote for burgundy and pink to be our class colors.  It surprised me as it was coming from a girl with red hair.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but having grown up in a family of red-heads,  those colors were generally avoided.  After a vote by the seniors, the first portion of the Serenity Prayer was chosen as our class motto and our colors were burgundy and pink, just so you know.

The Serenity Pray was written in 1951 by Reinhold Niebuhr (b.1892-d.1971).  Mr. Niebuhr’s parents immigrated to the United States from Germany, his father was a minister and Reinhold followed in his father’s footsteps becoming a minister, as well as a theologian and civil activist.

I often say the Serenity Prayer after taking a deep breath, holding it, and exhaling.  Not so much in relation to the current medical situations in our family as you would think, but because of the moral decay I see in this world on a day to day basis.  Unfortunately, when I think it’s courage I need, it quickly turns to needing wisdom, which I use to think I needed more of, until I learned that knowledge is knowing it and wisdom is doing it.  Basically a walk the walk and not talk the talk.  After pondering a situation the other morning, I’ve decided my area of work is needed in the “serenity” part.  I’ve accepted the fact I have to play the hand I’ve been dealt, there are no do-overs in life.

se·ren·i·ty   noun   the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled

After gaining a considerable amount of knowledge over the past 5 years, I’ve found several verses of scripture that have changed the way I react in several situations and the Serenity Prayer falls right in to place among them.  Some of the things I’ve learned go against what my wants are; a prime example comes from Romans 12:19 – Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.  Because of my need for instant gratification I want to be the one to take revenge so I can see the outcome first hand, even though sometimes it probably wouldn’t be pretty.   I want to “show them!” by repeating their actions against them.  But as I’m thinking about how sweet revenge would be, the scripture from Matthew 7:5 pops into my head – You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.  Probably the one most fits days would be Colossians 3:23 – Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.  I often think about the vineyard owner that paid the same wage to the men that worked all day as he did for the ones who worked only an hour or two.  The scripture is in Matthew 20:15 – Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?

I could go on but it all boils down to the same thing.  I have more knowledge to gain and a lot more work to do in the wisdom area, and it doesn’t matter what I want anyway.  What those around me are doing or not doing is not my problem, I will only  have to answer for myself in the end.  I need to cling to the serenity part.

I can’t finish this blog with just the first part of the poem that most everyone knows, I need to share ………………….. wait for it ………………… the rest of the story.  The final verses of the Serenity Poem are:

accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that He 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.

Amen.

-dar