Here's To the Things We Can't Change

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...” The opening words of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Serenity Prayer” continuously echoed in my thoughts as I stared at my face in the mirror. Just 48 hours before, I had a different face. My lip was not swollen; it wasn’t being held together by string which a medical resident had pulled through my flesh with a needle. My teeth were all in place, all whole, no chips no fractures. My face wasn’t sore and swollen. Just 48 hours ago I recognized myself. As Niebuhr’s words formed an annoying refrain in my head I couldn’t help but think that I was looking at a stranger. The woman looking back at me in the mirror was unfamiliar; four missing teeth, two chipped teeth and a lower lip with a blood-stained wound. How did this happen? What had I done?

The most honest sentiment I could muster in the hours after picking myself up off of the floor of the small, half-bathroom at my mother in law’s home, where I had apparently fainted in early morning hours of March 21, was “this didn’t have to happen.” I had been in bed late the night before. I had just finished prayer time. I began to feel sick. I went to the bathroom to vomit. I woke up with blood all over my face and three of my front teeth on the floor covered in blood. “This didn’t have to happen. I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t drinking. I don’t do drugs. I didn’t trip and fall. This didn’t have to happen.”

It didn’t have to happen. The same thought occurred to me three and a half years before when I was fired from a position at a non-profit because my new boss wanted to take my program in a “new direction.” I had exceeded all the targets, hired and managed a great staff, brought in outside resources to sustain the program and she still decided to eliminate my position. When I asked about the “new direction” she wanted to take with the program, she couldn’t articulate one. When I asked for her vision for the program, she stuttered. When I asked what I had done wrong, why was mine the only position eliminated, she had no answer. “This is so hard for me,” she said. “No,” I told her. “You can’t answer a single question about this decision. You still have a job to help support your family. I have been told I did an excellent job and you are still firing me. No. You don’t get to tell me how hard this is for you.” This didn’t have to happen, I thought to myself. I wanted to say it to her, but I couldn’t muster nice words. My mama taught me that if you can’t say something nice… I was hurt. And for a long time afterword I was bitter. A sister, another black woman, failed to have my back. And it didn’t have to happen.

And this, falling on my face, loosing my teeth, ripping my lip open, this didn’t have to happen. That familiar feeling of bitterness was starting to fill the corners of my mouth as I stood in the mirror and stared at this unfamiliar face, her swollen left cheek stained with the saltiness of her tears. I wanted to offer her nice words. I wanted to tell her it didn’t look that bad, but those would be lies. Lies aren’t nice, and my mama taught me if you can’t say something nice…

“Why?” I asked her, “Now what?” I pleaded. And as I stood, waiting for her to offer a profound answer, a detailed action plan, or for another cascade of salty tears to pour from her eyes, all I could hear was “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…” The things I cannot change. I was staring an unwelcomed circumstance that changed a fundamental part of who I am, right in the face and all the Spirit could give me was a prayer to accept this. Because I couldn’t change it. I couldn’t rewind time. I couldn’t grow new teeth. I couldn’t make the swelling go down or the wound in my lip go away. I didn’t cause this and I couldn’t fix it and I had no one to blame for it…not even myself. All I could do was wait. Wait for new teeth. Wait for the stitches in my lip to dissolve. Wait until I could wear makeup again. Wait for the pain to subside. Wait for my heart to heal. All I could do was wait. I couldn’t change a thing.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..” the refrain grew louder, more insistent. “But this didn’t have to happen. I’m angry and I don’t want to accept that this happened and that I can’t fix it,” I said to myself, to God. The bitter taste of the fruit of a tree I didn’t climb was forming in my mouth. “This is unfair. It didn’t have to happen God.” And it’s true, it didn’t HAVE to happen, but it DID happen. In that moment I gained a new appreciation for Niebuhr’s words. I realized that acceptance means coming to terms with the fact that we aren’t as in control as we would like to think. Acceptance is standing in the strength of surrender and knowing the difference between surrender and resignation. Acceptance is continuing to unapologetically find your way through circumstances you didn’t create to pursue the dreams and purpose for which you were created.

The stuff that is hardest to accept is the stuff we have no ability to change. My conversations and celebrations with God have sounded a little different since March 21, 2019. My “Serenity Prayer” is my way of embracing the hard stuff:

Here’s to the things we can’t fix;

Here’s to the problems we can’t solve;

Here’s to the mountains we can’t move;

Here’s to the minds we can’t change;

Here’s to the lives we can’t save;

Here’s to the brokenness we can’t repair;

Here’s to the pain we can’t heal;

Here’s to the time we can’t turn back;

Here’s to the losses we can’t prevent;

Here’s to the scars we can’t erase;

Here’s to the things we can’t change.

May we find the courage to be taught by them.

May we find the flexibility to be shaped by them.

May we be fluid enough to find ways through them.

May we be agile enough to find our ways around them.

May we become more of who we were created to be because of them.

Here is to the things we cannot change.

May WE never be unchanged by them.

Amen.