the serenity prayer

had been very busy running around for our parish exhibition on occasion of the penang diocese golden jubilee. well the exhibtion was opened on saturday (11 june) evening and today at 8.00am morning too it will be opened.

i was in charge of making the bookmark souvenirs (will scan it and show you later). we choose to use the pictures of the 4 churches in our parish (city parish in the island district) on one side and the other side to put in the famous ‘serenity prayer’. all along i thought the serenity prayer only consists of this part:

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.

but it seems that this is only the short version, which anyway become so popular that only this version had been used often on bookmarks and posters. it was only this time that i found out the longer version of the serenity prayer (and you can read here about the history of the prayer). here they are. it is indeed a beautiful poem, every part of it.

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 hardships 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.
–Reinhold Niebuhr