Serenity & The Light Of Wisdom

[VickySGV]

I wrote this just about one year into my current Recovery in June of 2009 -- Three weeks before I began HRT.  This is not just for those recovering from Chemical addiction but for those accepting their own identities:

 

I faced a challenge to the very core of my life,

            a demand for change as toll for hope of daily sanity as I go forward.

 

“GOD, grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change, The COURAGE to

 change what I am able,  and the Wisdom to know the difference.” 

 

“Light three lamps and place them in a triangle around you” came the voice. And so I lit three

lamps as the darkness of my challenge closed around me.

“Stand now within the center of the lights” I was commanded.  From the center of this place

            I found that I could only see two lamps wherever I looked.  “Keep the light of wisdom

            in your sight at all times, and pray again!!” came the command!!

The light of WISDOM now glowed with a yellow-green, and to its left the flame of

Acceptance pulled my eye to it.  YES, the WISDOM  said, you cannot make the change

 you face!!

And then it seemed to me the flame of WISDOM spoke aloud  “Indeed, I am the wisdom of the

            WORLD.  For you to make this change you will go against god and all that your fellow

            people believe.  You will be DAMNED if you make it.” 

In the light of the flame I saw faces turned to me in scorn for the shame my choice

            would give to them, or so it seemed. .

So, mightily, I prayed that serenity would come in the flame of  Acceptance.  I could not

            go against the WISDOM of the world. 

Instead of Serenity though, a tempest filled with doubt and fear and loathing for my

            very being filled me and kept me helpless.

I prayed for Acceptance Of What I Could Not Change unceasingly that hour and the flame

            of WORLDLY WISDOM blazed the higher with each utterance of the prayer.

“Accept that you are horrible!!  Accept that you cannot live in fullness of  peace. 

            Accept that your Sanity will be destroyed!”

Shaken and heartbroken I prayed again, and then the WISDOM flared out as if to

            take me gleefully to its torment.  I shut my eyes, even the ones of my heart!!

I was damned and to be consumed by the WISDOM of the WORLD, and then the flame

            fell back into itself after taking with it the light of ACCEPTANCE.

I waited for the darkness, a great and threatening darkness to descend

on the place where I now was.  I longed for the darkness and death.

Dimly, through closed eyes, I sensed a small feeble light still in the place I was

            now imprisoned for eternity.

Where was that light?  It was coming now, the rose gold of new dawn.  What light was

            this to be?  To find it I would have to turn!

As I had been commanded, I kept the light of WISDOM in my eye.  A lamp now

            giving the feeble faltering glow of a sullen wick that was not drawing oil.

I saw the lamp I had forgotten, the one whose name was COURAGE to make my

            change. 

As I now watched, the lamp of COURAGE reached out its light and nourished

            the flame of WISDOM with its own rose-gold, but now the WISDOM

            took on the look of bright yellows, blues and violets of SERENITY.

I had sought GOD's help by the light of the worlds wisdom in which SERENITY

            cannot be seen.

I now can see the course of change that I must take, and in COURAGE also LIVES

            the SERENITY I long for. 

 

 

 

[Charlize]

Thank you for sharing this Vicky. Your expression of your journey is beautifully expressed.

 The Serenity Prayer has been powerful for me as well.  That continues today both as a trans alcoholic and for a person faced by life today.  

 

Hugs,

 

Charlize