OT....religious Serenity Prayer when life goes awry

My oldest sis in Cali is goin thru some major crap with her husband of 26 years n her in-laws since the passing of her MIL at 99 a few months ago. Its gettin pretty bad with the vultures coming outta the wood work since MIL passing...so me n sissie have been yackin so much since...she really needs me lately to vent n share strategies of coping with all the family in-fighting over the will. 

We recently discussed the Serenity Prayer (I picked up since way back when at OA meets in Cali)                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                   

Im an atheist, but a spiritual person ..the dichotomy of me ,-)   n altho I rarely get the wisdom part right...lmao... the Serenity Prayer is a mantra Ive used many times over post op to help me cope. 

Anyhoos...sissie wanted to know how the Serenity Prayer came to be and if it originated from the Bible... LMGTFY!! afterall I am also a googlin expert! ...lmao.  I can see why the ONE DAY AT A TIME and SERENITY PRAYER is a MAJOR part of OA, AA, NA, life in general especially after reading for the first time...the ORIGINAL (below)...it IS such a powerful message religious or not.....maybe you can identify with on your own weight loss journey...when we sometimes get too close to the forest to see the trees ,-).

 a snippet from Wikipedia on theologian, author of it 

Reinhold Niebuhr

Though clearly circulating in oral form earlier, the earliest established date for a written form of the prayer is Niebuhr's inclusion of it in a sermon in 1943, followed closely by its inclusion in a Federal Council of Churches (FCC) book for army chaplains and servicemen in 1944. Niebuhr himself did not publish the Serenity Prayer until 1951, in one of his magazine columns, although it had previously appeared under his name.^[2] The prayer is cited both by Niebuhr^[3] and by Niebuhr's daughter The original, attributed to Niebuhr, is:

God, give me 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.

 

 

Just beautiful! I go to OA and once ina blue moon we'll read the entire prayer - powerful!

I love it.  I have been in and out of Food Addicts anonymous since 1999 and love that prayer and so much wisdom from the AA Program.