Grant me the serenity

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

The Serenity prayer, I remember first hearing of it when I was in a 12 step program in my teenage years. Since then I have repeated the prayer to myself in particularly difficult times. 

Today was one of those times. Those moments when your heart is broken so deeply that you have to beg God for the strength to make it through. 

I was in a village that my organization recently began reaching out to. As usual, I would ask to hold most babies I came across. As I held one particular child, the woman who handed him to me began to gesture as if she wanted me to go away. She pointed to the child and pointed to me and gestured for us to go. One of my Khmer coworkers and friends began to listen to the woman and translate to me what she was saying. 

The child was her nephew, the child of her younger sister. The mother was barely 17, the father in prison. They were a shame to the family because they weren't married. The baby boy had asthma and there was no way for them to afford additional medical bills. This woman was asking me to take the child as my own. As we stood there she began to become more adamant, as the child looked at me she would gesture to me calling me "mother". It was all I could do to hold this sweet boy without crying. 

In these villages I stick out as a foreigner, I've been in places where people have "joked" about selling their child to me so the child would have a better life. But this was the first time where they were completely genuine, asking me to just take the child and give them nothing in return. I held this unwanted baby in my arms, wishing I could tell him as he grows that he is always infinitely wanted. 

As I held him, I begged God for serenity.... the serenity to accept that I cannot take this beautiful boy from his community. The serenity to know that there are "unwanted" children like him all over the world that will never even be held. Serenity to keep me from falling into a puddle on the floor because it is all too much. 

In that moment, I was reminded of the beauty of the serenity prayer- that it moves beyond acceptance of what is into courage of what can be. 

So I will continue to ask for the courage to change the things I can. I will be brave enough to wake up each morning and resist the urge to turn away from suffering. I will courageously love these children for the moments I am with them, without worrying about the time when I won't be around. I will continue to invest in and support this organization I love that is going to support this community for years to come, long after I have moved on...

In these moments I cry out in grief and hope- God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 

Love is enough.

Mother Teresa is one of my dearest spiritual teachers. I have loved her since I was a small child, and even more so since the deconstruction and rebirth of my faith. I was recently reading (another) biography of hers and in it the author spoke about how the Mother would respond when people said that her work was so small compared to the great destruction throughout the world, that it was only a drop in the ocean. Her response...

"I do not add up. I only subtract from the total number of poor or dying. With children one dollar saves a life. Could you say one dollar buys a life? No, but it is used to save it. So we use ourselves to save what we can."

 This was always her mentality, with all things. Rather than dwelling on what was lacking or what could not be done, she put all of her energy into each moment and interaction. Her life was a series of intimate moments with thousands of people, each one changed by the crossing of their paths.

The same day I read that was a day that we were having a special kids camp in the village, where we would teach, play with, and feed nearly a hundred children. It's a wonderful event that is both difficult and rewarding! As we were doing this, I pointed out to my friend/leader that I wished I could pull one girl aside to braid her hair. She told me a bit about this child, that her brother and parents had AIDS. They left her and her brother with their grandmother each day, who was usually extremely drunk.

I wished I could take her and her brother away with me, I wished I could remove them from this life of suffering. I realized that this story was not unique, almost every child in this center has experienced abuse of some form. Yet when they came to this place, they could be children again. Here they could play and eat, they could be with people who see their pain and love them when they have nothing to offer. Here they were safe and cherished, even if only for a few hours each week.

I often lose sight of this perspective. I get so overwhelmed with the pain and suffering of the world that I forget to see the hope. In all honesty, occasionally I will suddenly be struck with all of the pain- I will once again realize that each day so many are being abused, starved, evacuated, and abandoned. In these moments I usually sob for a few hours until I can finally fall asleep. This happens more often than I'd like to admit.

I forget what Mother Teresa carried with her always, a focus on what can be done rather than what cannot. When she didn't have the means to give money or medicine, she gave kindness. She gave all that she had, even when all she had was a warm smile and gentle hands. In these moments, love is enough. It's not about whether we can save the whole world, because we simply can't. It's about realizing that what we have is enough for this moment, and every moment hereafter.