Serenity Prayer, The

God, 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. Many of us feel something is missing from our lives. 'When we try to fill this empty space in our hearts with something other than God, our lives remain hollow. More than this, we experience an inner discontent that robs us of peace and serenity,' explains Trevor Hudson. 'I want to suggest that this emptiness within our lives is one of God's most special gifts...This prayer invites us to turn towards God, as we are, and ask for the gift of serenity.' This famous prayer has been widely adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous, but has spread far further. Over the last 70 years, since it was used by Dr Reinhold Niebuhr in an address at Union Theological Seminary, it has been translated into tens of different languages and is used daily by millions. In a series of short, pithy chapters, Trevor Hudson outlines how, by accepting the prayer fully as our own, our lives can be transformed.

Hudson, Trevor