"Welcome to Holland"

Photo By Kevin Still

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.

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world

as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right

if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with Him

Forever in the next.

Amen.

The Serenity Prayer is something I have seen and read over and over and yet never really reflected on. I guess I thought it was cliche but then cliches are cliche for a reason right? Phrases, poems and stories become cliche because they resonate with large groups of people and thus become overused and eventually begin to lose their original meaning. Today I was thinking about how to handle things that are out of my control and this prayer just popped into my head. I realized that sometimes despite my best intentions to the contrary I end up beating my head against a wall trying to change things I have no control over. I think this prayer is a poignant reminder that part of what it takes to be happy is my ability to understand and remember that while circumstances may be out of my control I can focus on what is in my control, my response to the situation. It's a constant battle because we all have people or circumstances that we really want to change but ultimately have no control over. I worked with a woman many years ago that was super disorganized, didn't have what I would characterize as a great work ethic and had what I thought was this wild personality when interacting with customers. I kept trying to change how she did things and change them to my way of doing things, mostly because I foolishly thought my way was the right way or a better way and of course she would be much more successful if she was just doing things my way. I actually feel really guilty about that now because I've come to realize that her way worked. It worked for her. It would not have worked for me and I wouldn't have liked running my business that way but it worked for her. I think about these things often now because lately I've really been having to find the joy and the beauty in the unexpected and out of control! Becoming a mom means that someday soon I am going to have a little person in my house that is going to have her very own way of doing things and I may want her to do it my way and she may not want or be able to do it my way. I've been praying that God will give me the grace and love to let things be out of my control…….There's a well known essay called "Welcome to Holland" written by Emily Kingsely about having a child with a disability. The piece is given by many organizations to new parents of children with special-needs. The essay employs a metaphor of excitement for a vacation to Italy that becomes a disappointment when the plane lands instead in Holland.
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
The metaphor is that the trip to Italy is a typical birth and child-raising experience, and that the trip to Holland is the experience of having and raising a child with special-needs.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
In the end, however, the reader sees that the "trip" is still well worth it and comes to the realization: But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
I really love that essay.