Navigating Life's Waves: Anchored in Prayer

Welcome to Circle Community

I began this webpage while I was still in seminary, in fact creating this website, one of the ministries I worked on, was a requirement for graduation. Ever since that time in 2009, I’ve experienced many changes, many losses. How about you? Is that the theme in your life too? Changes both for the better and for the worse came into my life, like waves. And, I rode the waves sometimes really well, but often I felt overwhelmed, not sure of what to do next. Prayer and meditation were my anchors in rough waves, but also in gentle ones when I accepted the change easily. Getting older is the change hardest to accept. Perhaps you are not feeling that in your life yet, you may be riding on a high wave with a sense of “I can do this”, but assuredly ageing is inevitable for all of us. The wave that lifts you up may also carry you down, but, you say, not today.  That is what I say too, ”not today”!

Change is the hard to accept. That’s been the overarching lesson in my life.

Today, I acknowledge that I do not want to work the long hours I did just a few months ago. I am staying with my part time job. I am adjusting my life style to the current situation most of us in America are facing; higher prices, new distressing news clamoring for our attention. May be you too are acing similar issues. The Serenity Prayer written by the American theologian Comes to mind, http://Reinhold Niebuhr

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

For several decades, I attended Al-Anon in there different states. This prayer was and still is like a guiding light at times when I am confused and uncertain about what to do. I pause to examine my life circumstances. As I write in my journal all the things I am grateful for on that day the list of small and big things flow into my pen and unto the page. Being grateful diminishes my fears and apprehensions.  A wave of gratitude lifts me up once again. But, that is not all there is, I also acknowledge the events, circumstances and interactions with others that I am not grateful for. Yes, writing down those things I am not grateful for is hard, it does not flow easily unto the page yet, It helps me stay in the real, noting the feelings that arise rather than dismissing them. This too is part of me. Writing both the grateful and ungrateful things my life helps me let those negative feelings and thoughts fade. For me this is grace.

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Fr. Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O. is a Trappist