Serenity.
Courage.
Wisdom.
These are the three traits that I have been attempting to center my life around...well, recently. These three simple words come from a prayer that has brought me much understanding and belonging in a life journey with many rockie roads. Serenity is defined as the state or quality of being serene, calm, or tranquil. When you hear those words, you do not think of me. I have never been called calm and certainly never tranquil. But finding serenity, finding an inner stillness and accepting calmness in a raging world has revealed a great amount to me. In the book of Colossians, Paul tells the people of new faith to let go of their old ways and take up new characteristics that resemble a spiritual life. One of these qualities is gentleness. When I first started studying this scripture it made me really mad. I am NOT a gentle soul. I think the most common describer people give me is blunt, which is very much so the opposite of gentle. How can I become a more gentle person? But in asking for serenity, I have also found gentleness. When I am at peace and actively seeking a tranquil mindset, it is so flippin easy to be gentle. I think about my words before I speak them. I consider the feelings of others before I act. I become gentle by trying to extend my serenity to others. But when I get wound up in things that shouldn't matter, stuff I can't control, work I don't have time to finish, and all the things that hinder me, gentleness and serenity seem far off.
I have spent a lot of my life playing a blame-game, but in searching for the serenity to accept the things I cannot change I remind myself that blame has no place in a tranquil mind and pursuing control will always end in a state of bluntness instead of gentleness.
