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You are here: Home / Grace Stories / 30 Days of Light 4, This Nanosecond

March 9, 2011 By Janneke

30 Days of Light 4, This Nanosecond

One Nanosecond at a Time

Serenity – a major tool for peace of mind is the Serenity Prayer

the prayer I’m ALWAYS forgetting to say, when I most need it

I guess that’s why so many of us keep the Serenity Prayer right in front of us, maybe when we need it, we’ll use it…

One Nanosecond at a Time

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.

(source – uncertain)

 

Sometimes I need the Nanosecond version of the Serenity Prayer, oh yeah, that version is wayyyy shorter. My sister, Ann texted me from her ski vacation in Colorado. She was trying the “fun” world of cross-country skiing for the first time. She was not serene. The harder she tried to glide, the more it did not happen. The more she tried to relax into the move, the more she tensed up. She used the short version of the Serenity Prayer a lot. In case you don’t know it,  it’s an old joke to say,

“Hey, do you know the short version of the Serenity Prayer?”

“No.”

“It’s (expletive).”

 

I confess to having done the one word Serenity Prayer a lot too.

My sister Ann and I laughed, that’s a better short version of the Serenity Prayer.

My other favorite Anne, author Anne LaMott chronicles her imperfect journeys, including faith journeys,  in Traveling Mercies and her other books of essays, says sometimes the best prayers are:

“Help, help, help” and then “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Ahh, those prayers I usually remember, but I still keep the Serentiy Prayer in front of me anyway. There’s not a day nor a nanosecond I don’t need this prayer.

So what are your quick prayers?

What is usually going on in your life when you say the following?  “Right now I’m taking my life one nanosecond at a time.”

 

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Filed Under: Grace Stories, Thirty Days of Light Tagged With: God, Licht, Light, Prayer, Religion and Spirituality

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Meet Janneke

Janneke Jobsis Brown
Following Shadows is inspired by my own story. As a survivor of an international childhood with parents who were World War II survivors, I know the generational after-effects of starvation and slave labor in Japanese concentration camps for my father, and the terror of Nazi occupation for my mother. I know the challenges of struggling to feel at home across three countries: The Netherlands, Iran and America.

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