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.
– Reinhold Niebuhr
These are troubled times. Some families have been hit hard, some less so, and some even harder. If we look at economics alone, money is like oxygen, how do people react when deprived of it for any length of time? It’s completely understandable that life’s challenges seep into the marriage and then the dinner table as the constriction causes tension. This challenge has been faced by all families throughout history and can be the wedge that divides or the fire that forges. The Marr family has certainly faced times when external pressures fueled heated debate on our marital ‘misalignments’. It is the wisdom within the Serenity Prayer that has offered comfort and guidance in those difficult times. Teaching this prayer to your kids is a declaration that tough times will forge a closer family bond.
Let’s start there – teaching your children is a declaration. Generally, people don’t want to be hypocritical, particularly to their children. The Bible uses the word “hypocrite” 22 times for a reason; in our thinking, it’s because the hypocritical person’s words mask contradicting character traits. Little kids are innocent and can be deceived in the short run. By making a declaration, “The Marr Family will have this as a standard”, then the kids line up and try to live by that standard. Mom and Dad then can’t say, “Do as I say, not as I do”, or they’ll run the risk of losing their kids deep-seated respect over time.
As it pertains to the Serenity Prayer, a dinner declaration might look like this: Dad: “I want us all to memorize the Serenity Prayer (and then recites it). There will be times when we are faced with a challenge with school, or friends, or health, or whatever, and we need to go to God and ask for peace, courage, and wisdom to help us get through it and get from it. And this is important to understand – Every situation, good or bad, eventually comes to an end. So we want to grow from both good times and bad.” With this declaration, a family standard of behavior and belief emphasizes prayer, thoughtful action in the face of difficulty, perseverance, strength of character, and acceptance of outcome without residual negativity. These traits will forge a stronger family bond.
But the prayer itself offers more. For anyone who has had a complex problem, they have come to understand how the initial understanding of that problem eventually gains depth. What at first seems like an insoluble wall, eventually yields to a more complex interlacing of cause and effect, risks and vulnerabilities, actionable elements and prayerful hopes, and eventually a path out of the darkness. Like a seed that germinates only after a fire, the Serenity Prayer unfolds its blessing only in difficulty. This is why you don’t cheat your children of solving their own problems. Quitting the problem, or having someone solve it for you, doesn’t develop the skill of looking into the depth of difficulty, calming the spirit, and prayerfully and courageously taking action to solve it. And if it doesn’t work out, learning to emotionally deal with the aftermath. Kids need to develop this skill while the stakes are small.
Life can be hard. By declaring the Serenity Prayer to your family, over and over again, you are drawing a circle around the family that says, “Even though the storm may rage outside this circle, inside we have God, and we have each other.”
To your family’s forging bond.
Lis and Dave Marr