The Serenity Prayer is both beautiful and powerful. It’s simple, yet so much depth is packed into those lines. It’s general, yet can be specifically applied to every struggle.
The story behind the Serenity Prayer
Every prayer has a story behind it. Most sources cite the original prayer coming from a man struggling to come to grips with his powerlessness against the violence of Hitler’s Third Reich.
A friend showed an AA secretary a clipping of the Prayer from the New York Herald Tribune in 1941. She sent the poem in a letter to groups. Members made cards of the Prayer so they could carry it with them. Bill W. said that “never had we seen so much AA in so few words.”
How do you apply the Serenity Prayer to your life?
We each have different stories behind our Serenity Prayer. But all of us have had to accept loss and discouragement. We wanted to illustrate the story behind one man’s Serenity Prayer as he journeys from a chaotic path to serenity. Recovery is a difficult road; it’s not easy. But there is hope, hope for redemption and restoration.