As I continue my journey of growth and change, I have developed my own serenity prayer. This, I deem highly, as a reflection of my current state in the evolution of my best self.
As I flesh out my prayer, I will once again, ask you to walk with me. For each section, I will make a personal reference to an experience in Dominica, which is quite fitting since Dominica was the impetus for my change.
In this article, I will focus on the first part of my prayer:
Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that not everything you place in my life is permanent
It took me such a long time to first, come to the realization that not everything God blesses me with, is meant to hold a permanent position in my life. Then, a further prolonged period of time to accept the validity of it. This is such a hard pill to swallow, mainly because some of the things we have been blessed with are those we’ve longed for, fought for, worked on or come to love with all our hearts. We hold these things dear because they mean everything to us and their presence and impact may fill us with unspeakable joy and even the feeling of completion. It can be a job, an opportunity, a relationship, a friendship, an accomplishment, health, money, family, etc. How do we, after yearning and attaining, come to terms with the fact that these are sometimes temporary blessings? Sometimes it takes a force greater than ourselves to drag us away, kicking and screaming, because we adamantly refuse to let them go. Sometimes, we do not let them go.
When I went to Dominica, I felt that was where I belonged. If I had any doubts, the drastic improvement in my health shoved them away. After coming home, I had an unquenchable desire to return because my health started to decline and I honestly believed that my destiny in Dominica was not complete. Unfortunately (or so I thought at the time), nothing was working out for me to go back as quickly as I wanted. I count my opportunity to go to Dominica as one of my biggest blessings (Thank you Caribbean Internship Program) since that experience changed my life. However, holding on to the idea that my opportunity should be permanent, blinded me to the truth that I am destined for greatness, no matter where in the world I am. I also lost sight of my mantra that ”the universe is indeed unfolding as it should”. In a slow fade, I began to lose the light within me that would burn brightly, even in the darkest of situations. That was when I realised that I needed to let that desire go. So while I strongly believe, now more than ever, that Dominica has my heart, I am content with the notion that my experience at that point in time, was something that needed to end so I could be transported to a higher dimension of growth.
It has been an uphill climb but I have come to realise that while some things are worth fighting for, some are definitely not. It took much praying, crying, questioning and trying to get me to this point, but I must admit that while it was a difficult and painful journey to get here, this is a very liberating place to be. In all honestly, words are terribly insufficient to enunciate the amount of energy required to fight Lupus on a daily basis. I honestly have none left to waste on prolonging anything in my life that has become toxic to my growth and happiness, irrespective of my emotional attachment, or how much blood, sweat and tears I invested.
So I continue to pray every day, not only for the ability to distinguish between the temporary and the permanent blessings, but more so, for the insight to recognise the point at which I need to walk away from a temporary blessing. It is so easy to become blinded by wishful thinking and the idea of potential, that we cannot see that before us, we hold sheer fallacies. Likewise, it is sometimes effortless for our vision to become so clouded by memories, that we cannot perceive that what we are desperately grasping is merely the past. However, when disappointment outweighs happiness, when standards and worth have to be compromised, when there is no parallel between words and actions or promises and expectations, when overall wellbeing and functioning become negatively affected, it is ultimately time to let go. When it gets to this point, odds are, the purpose of the temporary has been fulfilled and it has overstayed its welcome. Some blessings can eventually but inevitably become curses, when we decide to make those that were meant to be temporary, permanent.
To be continued…. 🔜 Serenity Prayer- Part 2
Shoyéa-Gaye Grant ©
Beautifully put.
Love it. Bask in your growth and embrace the changes that comes therewith. I too am learning and growing and can relate probably too much to your prayers. We all have our own “Dominicas”, that thing we are convinced of and then have to walk away. See the true test of our ability to really trust God (let go) is evident in circumstances where it seems impossible to do so. The ability to “let things go” is the greatest gift one can his or herself. When u let go, God determines what is temporary or permanent because letting go doesn’t always mean it over it just means God is in control. He is the decision maker…. #OrderedSteps