The Serenity Prayer

When my Junior High homeroom teacher, Mrs. Moore, came into the classroom in the morning she always took a few moments and read something to herself from a card. One day I "happened" to see that card on her desk and discovered she was reading the Serenity Prayer each morning. Why would a Junior High School teacher need to read a serenity prayer???

We are probably all familiar with the following well known version of the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The prayer which came to be called the Serenity Prayer was originally written in the 1930s by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and published in 1951. The words were altered to read as they do above by Alcoholics Anonymous for use in their Twelve Step Program.

The original prayer reads as follows:

God give me the 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 like 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.

A great prayer in its day. A great prayer for this day.

Pastor Joanne