serenity over biscuits

i stayed with my grandma bates quite often while i was a kid, especially in the summer when i would stay with her weeks on end. she was the type of grandmother every child should have, always gentle, compassionate, full of love and grace. she fixed me homemade biscuits and gravy every morning and called me "jack". i have so many wonderful memories of her.
recently, a good friend of mine, liz seif, gave me a beautiful silver bracelet inscribed with the serenity prayer. That same prayer hung in my grandmother's kitchen, right above her stove on a copper plaque. i remember asking my grandma about the meaning of those words while she fixed me breakfast. she did her best to explain it to my ten year old mind - that so much of what we may worry and fret about is futile, that there are times we must be really brave. i found this extended version of the prayer. maybe i will hang it above my stove one day for my future grandchildren.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

(the photograph is of my grandparents, darkie and isadore bates, taken by my dad in 1980)