The Serenity Prayer – Extended Version

I was reading Betty Ford’s Betty: A Glad Awakening and the book taught me something (many things) I did not know. You guys probably all know this, but the Serenity Prayer (which truth be told has always seemed a bit basic to me) does not end where I thought it ended – at the part where we stop holding hands…. The long version makes more sense to me (although I definitely want to be more than “reasonably happy in this life”). The Serenity Prayer is the work of the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and the full version is:

The Serenity Prayer

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.

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a

time; Accepting hardship

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

Today I’m not drinking because I am taking “this sinful world as it is”…

How come you’re not drinking?