One Thousand Gifts

Lately, I have been (slowly) reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.  This book is a challenging read for me in many ways but has been wonderful so far.  Her style of writing is so beautiful, but for someone who sometimes struggles with focus and comprehension, it just takes a while.  Is the content worth it?  Yes.  The basis of the book is "living fully right where you are".  The word that weaves throughout the book is Eucharisteo.  "He gave thanks."  Thanks with grace and joy.  You should read the book.

Any who, it is a lovely and sometimes sobering reminder to live with grace, joy and constant thanksgiving, on the good days and especially on the bad days.  Ann started to list 1,000 gifts.  Things she could be thankful for.  She started seeking out things to be thankful for.  Things like "jam piled high on toast", "crackle in fireplace", "bandages and pain relief."  She intentionally looked for joy in her days and, as I understand it, still keeps a list well beyond 1,000.

I've contemplated doing the same, but I'm awful for getting excited about something, spending lots of time getting ready for it, doing it for a week or two and then it trails off.  I don't want 1,000 gifts to be a project, I think the point is to make it a way of life.  Find joy.  Be thankful to God, who has blessed us with the house that needs cleaning, the food that needs to be washed from dirty dishes, the children who need...everything.  I struggle to find joy in the mundane and thankfulness in the frustration my day brings.  Last night I read about Ann witnessing a particularly frustrating interaction between her boys over toast and getting mad, really mad.  God reminded me through this book:

"Straw comes in all shapes and the back of a camel can be weak and it's toast and surely there's something behind it that I should seek out but I don't even care.  It's my own face that obscures the face of God.  How can I help this son of mine see when I can't see?  The parent must always self-parent first, self-preach before child-teach, because who can bring peace unless they've held their own peace?  Christ incarnated in the parent is the only hope of incarnating Christ in the child - yet how do I admit that people made in the Image can make me blind to God, my own soul contorting, skewing all the faces?  Why gouge out your own eyes when crusading for Beauty?  Pain drives us to the mad acts."

God, today I pray that I can find joy and grace and beauty in the midst of it all.  Help me to see and help my children see.  Remind me to self-preach before I child-teach.  Help me to hold onto peace and share it with the little ones I'm with.