The Serenity Prayer is perhaps the simplest and most well known prayer in our Western world. It has become more than a prayer for me lately. It is my new mantra. It doesn’t matter if I am trying to make sense of my health, my children, my husband, or the events in my life – it always seems to fit.  Does it fit for you?  I have the Serenity Prayer posted on my bedroom wall.  I see it everyday. Dr. Emmett Miller has a wonderful recording that I listen to almost everyday…. and I am struck by the synchronicity of connecting on a deep level with the prayer and finding his meditation CD.

According to Dr. Miller, serenity is that state of inner peace that is available to us when we allow it. The inner peace comes when we surrender that which is lower in us to that which is higher within each of us. “When the hand of utter stillness opens the heart, time ceases and love is possible.”

Courage is the most basic and important of all virtues as it secures and supports all the others. To act with courage is to act with heart… it is not the absence of fear but the rightness of action. Fear is merely a challenge, inviting us to be more than we think we can be. Courage is the secret of power. Do we dare follow our heart?  Do we dare to be ourselves?

Wisdom is the most central of the three gifts because it involves, according to Dr. Miller, making the “right” choices. Do I act to accept or change? Wisdom comes through experience. “Wisdom comes to those willing to learn the lessons of the world and be changed by them.” Knowledge comes, wisdom lingers. It is the result of discarding those things and behaviors which we no longer need. It is being in touch with our values and purpose and acting in accordance with them.

God, grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change, the COURAGE to change the things I can, and the WISDOM to know that difference. And so it is.

Thank you Dr. Miller!

The Serenity Prayer cont’d.