My Monday Morning Cup | Unsettled

I have found myself needing to take a breather from blogging the past few weeks. Let’s face it: there’s a lot of noise. The last thing I want to do is add to the ruckus. I’ve needed time to contemplate and process 2020. In recent weeks, I have felt unsettled.

In addition to some much needed time to think, I’ve also been taking time to create, still with words, but in a different format. Over the summer, I’ve managed to take a couple of writing courses, one of which I know has been super helpful to me and honing my craft as a writer. As I believe I mentioned in a previous post, the course has helped me grasp the concept of spiritual writing more fully and provided me with a launching board for my present day writing.

I began writing when I was a kid. I actually found a short story I wrote back in grade school while I was unpacking a box of stuff I’ve been needing to go through for a good long while. I am reading through a folder chocked full of different pieces in hopes of gleaning something from my writing as a younger man.

Don’t get me wrong. I like who I am and where I am today. I’m happy with the man I’ve become versus the man I once was, but I am curious to see what I put on paper back then. Who knows, maybe I will share some of what I rediscover in those old notebooks here on this blog. Or maybe I’ll publish it in a chapbook. Guess we’ll wait and see.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

I’ve been reciting the Serenity Prayer a lot lately. Perhaps that is due in part to my upcoming 25 year anniversary marking the day I finally put the old bottle down. Yes, that’s right—25 years—one day at a time. It’s hard to believe, honestly. Sobriety certainly has led me to be in a different place than I would have been apart from it. Without my sobriety, I’d either be in prison or laying six-foot under in some abandoned graveyard. I’m grateful that neither of those are the case and that I am experiencing my best life now, while anticipating an even better life one day. But, in the meantime, there’s lots that still needs to be done. God ain’t done with me yet. Thankfully.

I am not gonna lie. The past few weeks have been a struggle.

The reasons for that are as numerous as the stars in the sky. I’ll spare you the details today. Maybe I’ll tell you more in a future post.

Like I said, I’ve had lots of occassion to recite the Serenity Prayer.

The prayer, originally written by Reinhold Niebuhr, petitions God, asking the Lord to grant the individual praying peace in different matters of life. The person praying beseeches God for strength and courage to address those things the person can control and for acceptance in those matters that the individual cannot change.

The prayer appeared in newspapers back in the 1930s and then in a book of worship sometime during the 1940s. Over the years, different versions have cropped up. But the one I shared earlier in this post is the one that I am most familar with and the one I try and pray first thing in the morning and throughout the day.

Do you have a favorite prayer you lean on during your daily routine? If so, I’d love for you to share it with me and the readers in the comments below.

I never imagined myself sober. If you’re considering making a change in your life, please be encouraged in knowing that you can. But it starts with admitting that there is a change that needs to be made. And that won’t happen until the pain of remaining the same hurts more than the pain of making the change.

Thanks for reading.

God bless,

The Devotional Guy™

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