Serenity

“Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” — Serenity Prayer

Navigating my faith experience has been hands-down the greatest challenge of my life. Some of the people I call church have inflicted the deepest and most damaging wounds on my soul. The building I call church is the place where I feel most unsafe to be myself. And the experience of church makes it difficult for me to believe that I am a beloved child of God.

My situation is somewhat unique. My family’s membership in our church stretches back to my great-grandparents’ generation. Thus, having grown up in a family that grew up in a church, I lacked other perspectives and influences during my formative years. The message I internalized (whether it was explicitly taught or not) was that I needed to serve God and keep the rules so that He would love me.

All of the pleasing and perfecting and performing caught up to me by my thirties, prompting a faith crisis. After nearly ten years of searching, things feels more muddled than ever before. I now have a head-knowledge of God as love, but I seem to be incapable of settling into the experience of being loved by Him. It’s doubly frustrating because I feel like accepting God’s love should be something that I can control. I feel like I am failing in some way because I continue to be afraid of God.

Prayer: God grant me to the serenity to accept my experience if it cannot be changed and the courage to do anything that is within my power to change it if it can.