One Thousand Gifts

Dear Daughters,

The most life-changing book I’ve ever read is One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.  She writes about how God has extravagantly showered you and I with gifts – every day of our lives.  Never before had I read someone who was so vulnerable, sharing her insecurities, doubts, anxieties, depression, disappointment with God and her fierce struggle to find joy in everyday living.  As I read, I felt a kinship with her and was ready to learn whatever it was that had transformed her to become honest, bold and joyful. 

 Ann’s friend had challenged her to make a list of a thousand things she loves – 1,000 gifts.  She started that very day to chronicle the simple gifts of life – jam on toast, the cry of a blue jay, wool sweaters with turtleneck collars – and became surprised by the joy that naming these gifts created in her.  Joy that had eluded her for years now appeared through the simple act of thanksgiving. 

Because joy had been eluding me as well, I bought a journal and started writing down gifts, not gifts that I want, but gifts God has already given me.  Looking for gifts and writing them down in detail felt like I was on a quest for beauty – something I had never done before.  I too was surprised by joy springing up in my heart.  I became more aware of the beauty in our home, in the surrounding countryside, the people in my life. I started thanking God for the little things: my ten fingers, the energy to fold laundry, tulips in bloom, melted butter on my broccoli.  I found I couldn’t name just three a day – it became five, ten, sometimes more – simply because it brought such delight that I hadn’t realized had been missing in my ife.  It was easy to find and write down so many good gifts ….for many months.

Then came what Ann calls the hard Eucharisteo (the Greek word for thanks).  It’s easy to give thanks when things are going well, when my plans are moving forward and life is pleasant.  But when illness comes to visit, when relationships unfurl, when everywhere we turn we see envy, greed and bitterness, the most expected behavior in the world is to slip down into the hole of self-pity and start believing the lies that snake into our minds.

God is good when life is good,

but He must be mad at me because now life is bad.

He loves other people more than me

I’m never good enough

Why try?  Everything I do fails…

I’m just a has-been

God has abandoned me…

A woman of wisdom, Ann writes:

There can be a lying snake curled between your neural membranes

and his lies can run poison in your veins.

I’ve experienced that poison in my veins, and it produces heaviness, despair and hopelessness.  When I focused on those lies that crept in my mind and not on the truth of God’s goodness, life didn’t seem worth living. 

So in the midst of my anguish – when yet another move with the all too familiar sight of mountains of boxes around me, a body not functioning like I had hoped and the failing of key relationships – I went back and read One Thousand Gifts again in order to remember. I found that I struggle with soul amnesia, as Ann names it.  Forgetting the fact that God is good, in the times of sunny skies as well as those days of clouds and darkness.  Even though the sun is not shining for me to see, it’s still there behind the clouds. 

When I finished reading the book a third time, I read it again – I had to for survival.  And I kept writing in my gratitude journal.  Many days I would write through the midst of tears and grief, because I had to be reminded that God is good even though life is hard.  I was on a pursuit of things to be thankful for, even during the time of life I would have never scripted for myself.

Joy is always a function of gratitude –

and gratitude is always a function of perspective.

When I finally asked God for perspective, with eyes to believe that He does work all things together for good, then joy returned.  It was a sometimes slow and arduous process, but gratitude always reaps joy.

If we are going to change our lives, we’re going to have to change the way we see.  This recording our gratitudes, this looking for blessings everywhere, this counting of gifts – this is what changes what we are looking for.  This is what changes our perspective.  Thanksgiving is the lens God means for us to see joy all year round.         

Ann Voskamp

Giving thanks toward the end of November is good, but God never meant for us to imprison thanksgiving for only a season.  As is it written in Psalm 100,

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise;

Give thanks to Him and praise His name.

For the Lord is good and His love endures forever,

His faithfulness continues through all generations.

Without the daily habit of giving thanks, I would be a puddle on the floor.

Love, Mom