The Serenity Prayer is an invocation by the petitioner for wisdom to understand the difference between circumstances ("things") that can and cannot be changed, asking courage to take action in the case of the former, and serenity to accept in the case of the latter.
The prayer has achieved very wide distribution, appearing throughout church groups later in the 1930s, and in Alcoholics Anonymous and related organizational materials since at least 1941. Since at least the early 1960s, commercial enterprises such as Hallmark have used the prayer in its greeting cards and gift items. The prayer has also made its way into popular culture, including in works by Bill Watterson, Neil Young, Bryan Lee O'Malley and Sinéad O'Connor, and programming including True Detective.
History
In around 1932, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr is reported to have used the prayer as the last part of a longer prayer.
On October 31, 1932, American YWCA official quoted her colleague Niebuhr in her diary, "The victorious man in the day of crisis is the man who has the serenity to accept what he cannot help and the courage to change what must be altered."'
Drawing on this, Wygal published a prayer in the March 1933 edition of YWCA periodical The Woman's Press, which was soon shared with a broader audience on the front page of the Santa Cruz Sentinel of March 15, 1933. It read:Oh, God, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what can not be helped, and insight to know the one from the other.The prayer was also quoted in the Richmond Times-Dispatch later that month. Substantial quotes from the prayer were also printed in two Atlanta newspapers that month.
The prayer appeared a few additional times in American and Canadian newspapers in the 1930s, associated with the YWCA or with individual women. In 1937, the prayer was published in a Christian student newsletter, attributing it to Niebuhr.
Wygal published the prayer again in her 1940 book We Plan Our Own Worship Services, and attributed it to Niebuhr. It took this form:O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other.The prayer became published in English language newspapers much more from 1940, but never attributed to Wygal or Neibuhr. In June 1941, the prayer was published in an obituary in the New York Herald Tribune, and from here became known by the first Alcoholics Anonymous group. The organisation embraced it and spread it widely. It was initially known within the group as "The AA prayer", but by the late 1940s, was known as "the serenity prayer."
Niebuhr presented it in a 1943 sermon at Heath Evangelical Union Church in Heath, Massachusetts. Niebuhr's wife and daughter would later say this was when they understood the prayer was first written and used. It then also appeared in a sermon of Niebuhr's in the 1944 A Book of Prayers and Services for the Armed Forces, and was printed on cards for American soldiers in WWII. From January 1944, Niebuhr began being cited as the source of the prayer in newspaper articles.
Niebuhr also published it in a magazine column in 1951.
By this stage, the prayer had become commonly quoted as: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.
In 1962, Hallmark began using the prayer in its graduation cards, crediting Niebuhr, and in the 1970s they also produced a wall plaque. Posters and household ornaments were produced by others without attribution.
William FitzGerald believes Wygal wrote the prayer, arguing sexism as the reason for misattribution, while Fred Shapiro's, with greater nuance, has alternated in his conclusions, but presents both the messages that the "[o]rigin is debated" and Wygal as author in materials relating to The New Yale Book of Quotations, published in 2021.
Versions
The prayer has appeared in many versions. Reinhold Niebuhr's versions of the prayer were always printed as a single prose sentence; printings that set out the prayer as three lines of verse modify the author's original version. The best-known form is a late version, as it includes a reference to grace not found before 1951:
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.