december 7th, 2006 (#2)

ok, maybe it'll work out better this time

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This is an unusually hard season for me, despite how I might act or be around others. I'm not sure why, it just has been for years...always some sort of disappointment or let down. So this morning I've got the Serenity Prayer and Prayer for Peace going thru my head....thought I'd share them with you...maybe it'll help someone else today, too.

             SERENITY PRAYER  by Reinhold Niebuhr

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.

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.
 

there are two versions of the english translation for this one (that I've found):

             PRAYER FOR PEACE  by  saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.

and.....

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen. 

As friends in one of my favorite groups say.....

"Be Blessed and Blessed Be"