Focus Today

I had a doctor once tell me, “That if it hasn’t killed you yet it’s not going to.” I have never forgot those uncaring words. Needless to say, I have never went back to that doctor. But there was some truth in his words. Some things just cannot be fixed. We have to live with it.

This reminds me of the Serenity Prayer attributed to the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. It is commonly quoted as:

This prayer was adapted and popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous in 1941. Niebuhr used it in a 1943 sermon at the Health Evangelical Union Church in Health, Massachusetts. It appeared in the 1944 Book of Prayers and Services for the Armed Forces.

The word serenity means “the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled.” The prayer has been used to help people leave their past, haunting, troubling mistakes behind. To leave them in the past. Which, I must admit, is hard to do and I had no serenity leaving that doctor’s office. But the prayer also encourages us to focus on what we can do.

Did you know there was more to that prayer? It continues:

“Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as HE did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that HE will make all things right if I surrender to HIS will: that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with HIM forever in the next.”

This thanksgiving season I am thankful for a doctor’s uncaring words that remind me to take one day at a time and focus on what I can do today for my health that works for me.

Some things cannot be fixed, but we can learn how to better live with it.