I am reading, well actually devouring, the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. I'm considering making it required reading for everyone I love. Typically I'm more of a fiction girl. I'm not sure what happened, but I wonder if I overdosed on non-fiction in college and grad school. It's like the sight of it is alluring to me and I think I'm gonna like it, but when I start reading, I break out into hives. I don't like this about myself, and it's something I'm constantly working on. That is why reading this book is so exciting to me. It's non-fiction, and, not only is my body free of hives, but I am LOVING it, ingesting it, underlining it, turning down its corners, making REAL changes in my life because of it.
One of those changes is a journal of gifts in my life, things I'm thankful for. I started it yesterday, and one page is already full of gifts...
...fresh grace each day
...flannel sheets on a cold night
...Simon's smile in the morning
...homemade bread
...Isaac reading Harry Potter
...the moment my lover gets home
...Ezra's little thumbs playing games on Isaac's ipod
...teenage babysitters
...coffee first thing in the morning
...Tim in a suit and tie
...comments on facebook
...Simon playing Little People
...Little House on the Prairie
...dinner out
...the boys at Grammie's for the afternoon
...a dear old friend chatting on facebook
I can't wait to fill my little black journal with gifts, not just so I'm a good girl who is giving thanks, but so that the hole in my soul will truly be filled, so that I will receive the GIFT of God fully.
"...I'm struck, a comet blazing across the empty dark of my life. All those years thinking I was saved and had said my yes to God, but was really living the no. Was it because I had never fully experienced the whole of my salvation? Had never lived out the fullest expression of my salvation in Christ? Because I wasn't taking everything in my life and returning to Jesus, falling at His feet and thanking Him. I sit still, blinded. This is why I sat all those years in church but my soul holes had never fully healed. Eucharisteo, the Greek word with the hard meaning and the harder meaning to live--this is the only way from empty to full." from One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp
3 comments:
I can relate so much to that last paragraph. I love her blog and hope to read her book as well. Have you read the Jesus Calling Devotional by Sarah Young? LOVE.
thank you for sharing this :)
I haven't read it yet, but want to! When I hear about it, I think of that Cindy Morgan song, you know the one " thank you Lord, how can I ask for more"
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