One Thousand Gifts

I started reading "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp last night, and already I feel compelled to blog about it. Something tells me this one may be a life-changer, and it could not have come at a better time for me.

I have been struggling a bit lately and sometimes finding myself feeling discontent with this season of my life, despite all the incredible things that God has blessed me with and all I do have to be thankful for. It is something I have been wrestling with and praying about, but lately I have been challenged more to quit simply fighting it mentally and DO something purposeful to fight it in my day-to-day life.

This book speaks exactly to that, and I can't wait to read more.

Here are a few quotes...

Doubting God's goodness, distrusting His intent, discontented with what He's given, we desire... I have desired... more. The fullest life. [...] I look in the mirror, and if I'm fearlessly blunt- what I have, who I am, where I am, how I am, what I've got- this simply isn't enough. [...] Does God really love me? If he truly, deeply loves me, why does He withhold that which I believe will fully nourish me?

Satan's sin becomes the first sin of all humanity: the sin of ingratitude. Adam and Eve are, simply, painfully, ungrateful for what God gave. Isn't that the catalyst of all my sin?

I know it but I don't want to: it is a choice. Living with losses, I may choose to still say yes. Choose to say yes to what He freely gives. Could I live that- the choice to open the hands to freely receive whatever God gives? If I don't, I am still making a choice. The choice not to.

A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit. [...] All these years it's been utterly pointless to try to wrench out the spikes of discontent. Because that habit of discontentment can only be driven out by hammering in one iron sharper. The sleek pin of gratitude.

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

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 nail at a time.

Prayer without ceasing is only possible in a life of continual thanks. How did I ever think there was another way to enter into His courts but with thanksgiving?

So how do we do this, how do we purposefully build new, God-honoring habits to drive out this culture-fed habit of discontentment? I have been thinking about this all day.

The author of the book set about writing a list of one thousand things she is thankful for. One thousand blessings in her life. One thousand gifts from her Heavenly Father. She (obviously) had to get specific. I love that idea. It forced her to LOOK for things in her day to be thankful for, rather than griping (simply out of habit) about the things she would have chosen to be different, were she writing her own story.

At the end of the day, though, aren't we GLAD that we aren't writing our own story?

I think we have to purposefully look for blessings, we have to change the way we pray, we have to change the way we choose to spend our time. And it is a choice, how we spend our time. We can choose to spend less time online (on facebook, on blogs, filling our thoughts with the "idealistic" version of everyone else's lives and wondering, "why can't I have that?"). We can simply start soaking up the moments that we have with the people we love. Simplify our lives. Loosen up our schedules. Eliminate the "extra". Allow time to simply be with each other, with God, with friends.

Here's another one: We can purposefully make ourselves aware of people around us who are struggling, and find out what we can do to help them. Every time I have done this, the Lord has made it abundantly clear to me that I am NOT the only one who is hurting. I'm not. There are people close to me going through far worse trials, and guess what? They could use my help and my prayers. God has used this particular thing in my life to really bring me joy and bring me perspective, and for that I am so grateful.

Will you join me on this journey? Get a copy of this book and read it! I promise it will bless you from the very start. It will change the way you see your days and the way you pray throughout your day. If we let it, I really think that this could save our lives.