The Serenity Prayer

I had spiritual direction today and we talked a lot about the "immensity of God," how all God wants is for us to open our hearts to Him and to accept His love (which takes humility and letting go). At the end, Father told me to start reciting what is considered the full Serenity Prayer used by people in Alcoholics Anonymous. He was commenting that the difficulty we all have with God is actually that we are addicted to distraction. We all know we're going to die, so we spend almost all of our time avoiding death (and suffering) by giving our minds and hearts to things that cannot, ultimately fill us. And then we spend our time trying to figure out our emptiness...and some people are so saddened by our small emptiness that they become depressed or angry or just lost. Mother Teresa was often saying that the greatest poverty of the 21st Century is loneliness.

It is hard to turn to God because He is always in the present moment and sometimes, we don't like our present moments...so we run.

Like, I have chemo again tomorrow. My present moment is making dinner for my boys and helping with the world's largest pile of elementary school homework (thank you, Classical education) while trying to find a minute with Shawn. I am loving my current present moment, cancer or not.

Chemo is not my present moment, but its upcoming effects haunt my mind. My director was saying that God is not there. Not yet. In about 15 hours He'll be there and that is where His power to help me will be. If I spend this present moment worrying, it's not God's Will. I'll miss this moment, where He is. Right now he gives me love and a warm house and good friends' texts and messages. Today, I am not lonely and all of the love is very real.

Tomorrow, I will be fully in the Hand of God who has promised to save me from my sickness. I will pray and sit and talk with Shawn (we are so sad that we have "chemo dates," but we love the quiet time together). I will see my fellow suffering "man groupies" and we will joke about side effects and what we eat. And I will trust in Jesus and His love.

"You shall serve the Lord your God, and I will bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of you." Exodus 23:25

I pray this every time I eat now. Cancer sufferers are obsessed with what we eat. There are a lot of theories about what is best to fight the cancer. I have chosen to believe that God will bless my food. I still eat as well as I can...but I had 2 mimosas and shared a basket of French fries the other day and I recited this verse as my prayer.

In my present moment, I am serving God. He was totally there when I was having the drinks and fries and a serious talk with a new school-mom friend. Just like He'll be there "taking sickness away" when I am worn out by tomorrow's chemo. When my hands clamp up with neuropathy. When I can't eat anything (or don't want to).

When I just wish I was back helping with homework.

But God's not in the past. He's not in the future. He's just. right. here. So this is where I'll stay.

The Serenity Prayer: 

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.

Had a homemade play dough day this week. We haven't done play dough for years (C was embarrassed you might see he's still only 10). It was very special to me as I'm sure we won't have many of these young boy moments left as they are all very cool and sporty now. So I eat up pretending they are still in preschool. 

 gingerbread play dough waffles and "bacon" - I should probably teach them to make the real thing.

My very cool boy asking me not to post pictures of him enjoying this :) Sorry, baby.