One Thousand Gifts - loving this book!

This book that I'm reading is just amazing. I'm only a few chapters in, but it's quickly becoming one of my favorite books for my own spiritual growth. It's about living fully right where you are, which is so what I need in my life right now. Instead of looking forward to when I'm debt free, or having kids, or whatever, I need to be living fully in the here and now. I don't want to miss something that's happening now because I'm busy waiting on the future. My next breath isn't guaranteed let alone my next week, month, or year.

Ann Voskamp describes how part of living a full life is being thankful for everything and finding joy in all circumstances. This is especially challenging for me since a large part of my life (work) is so completely opposite of that. But I'm trying to find small moments of joy throughout my days at work and fill my evenings and weekends with things that are good for my soul. I believe that God has me where I am for a reason and I may not ever understand why, but I do have to trust Him.

I'll leave you with some of my favorite quotes that have really spoken to my heart:

page 54:

God is in the details; God is in the moment. God is in all that blurs by in a life - even hurts in a life.

page 55:

This is the whole of the secret learning? I confess, even after all that I've seen and tasted and touched, I do scoff. I yearn for the stuff of saints, the hard language, the fluency of thanksgiving in all, even the ugliest and most heartbreaking. I want the very fullest life.

pages 55-56:

This is why I had never really learned the language of "thanks in all things"! Though pastors preached t, I still came home and griped on. I had never practiced. Practiced until it became the second nature, the first skin. Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation. Practice, practice, practice. Hammer. Hammer. Hammer. This training might prove to be the hardest in m life. It just might save my life.

page 57:

Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.

It is true, I never stop wanting to learn the hard eucharisteo for the deathbeds and dark skies and the prodigal sons. But I accept this is the way to begin, and all hard things come in due time and with practice. Yet now wisps of cheese tell me gentle that this is the first secret step into eucharisteo's miracle. Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant--a seed--this pants the giant miracle. The miracle of eucharisteo, like the Last Supper, is in the eating of crumbs, the swallowing down one mouthful. Do not disdain the small. The whole of the life--even the hard--is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live them out. There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.

I, too, had read it often, the oft-quoted verse: "And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 5:20). And I, too, would nod and say straight-faced, "I'm thankful for everything." But in this counting gifts, to one thousand, more, I discover that slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life. A lifetime of sermons on "thanks in all things" and the shelves sagging with books on these things and I testify: life-changing gratitude does not fasten to a life unless nailed through with one very specific ail at a time.

page 58:

How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering. The converse does. The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world. When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us?

page 64:

Oh yes, I know you, the busyness of your life leaving little room for the source of your life.

One Thousand Gifts

I recently started reading Ann Voskamp's "One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are". While I struggle a bit with the writing style, I am loving this book! Usually I'm a fairly speedy reader, but the style Ann uses is a bit different than I am used to. This slows things down a bit as I need to read more carefully. I fully believe God intended this book for careful reading. At least for me.

I find myself constantly agreeing with what she is saying and stopping to ponder how this plays out in my own life.

One of the first times that Ann really grabbed my attention with this book is on page 22:

"I wonder too...if the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see. To see through to God. That which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave. Maybe so. But how? How do we choose to allow the holes to become seeing-through-to-God places? To more-God places? How do I give up resentment for gratitude, gnawing anger for spilling joy? Self-focus for God-communion?"

I feel like God has been dumping a lot of things in my life to process in this regard. I'm still working through it all, but I feel like this book is going to be very beneficial for me. Lately, I've been struggling with contentment where with my current "life" situation. Don't get me wrong - I love my life...the thing is, I find myself constantly looking forward to what's coming next...No matter what the "next" is. I'm surrendering this area of my life and trying to appreciate the here and now and exactly what I'm doing. Instead of looking forward to the weekend, I choose to try to find joy in what happens Monday-Friday. Instead of looking forward to our next trip or vacation, I choose to try to find joy in random visits with friends, date nights, and movies/PJ nights at home.

Ann writes a bit about this on page 31:

"Isn't it here? The wonder? Why do I spend so much of my living hours struggling to see it? Do we truly stumble so blind that we must be affronted with blinding magnificence for our blurry soul-sight to recognize grandeur? The very same surging magnificence that cascades over our every day here. Who has time or eyes to notice? All my eyes can seem to fixate on are the splatters of disappointment across here and me."

I don't want to be blind to the daily blesses that God gives me. I don't want to focus on the disappointment. I choose joy.

"So then as long as thanks is possible...I think this through. As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible. Joy is always possible. Whenever, meaning--now; wherever, meaning--here. The holy grail of joy is not in some exotic location or some emotional mountain peak experience. The joy wonder could be here! Here, in the messy, piercing ache of now, joy might be--unbelievably--possibly!" (page 33)

Reading Galore!

Peter and I have recently got back into reading a book we started together a while back. It's lots of fun and we've become more intentional about making time to read. For a while we sunk into a habit after work of just vegging out, for too long. Nothing wrong with vegging out, of course. Especially after long days at work. But we had become lazy about things like reading together. Getting back into it has been fun. It's a nice time to share and grow together and our marriage is surely blessed by it.

Oh, and "The Love Dare" book...fabulous so far! It's short and sweet but we can both foresee it being a growning and learning experience for each of us. We've been extremely blessed with good communication between us. Even during the friends/dating part of our relationship, we just openly talked for hours on end. We've also delved into deep areas before even getting engaged or married. It's saved us a lot of heartache and hurt in the long run and we've had a great first + year of marriage because of it. All this to say that I think there's always room for improvement and we're looking forward to seeing how this book, like the other one we are currently reading, will challenge us and help us grow.

The Love Dare

Obviously I'm having a hard time waiting to give Peter his anniversary gifts. Last night I gave him another one :) It's the book "The Love Dare". While I don't think there's anything wrong with giving your spouse something for their anniversary that they want, I try to gear my presents to include something about us or something we can do. After all, it's celebrating our anniversary and the day we got married. :)

"The Love Dare" is a book that was featured in a recent movie called "Fireproof" which we want to still see. I just thought it'd be a fun book to explore together. They have short, and by short I mean 2-3 pages each day to read together. And at the end there is a dare of some sort that each spouse participates in. We've decided to read this on our way to work each morning. Since we have a 30-45 min commute together, we're going to take advantage of it and do something fun. I'll read it aloud while Peter drives. Tomorrow is day 1!