Eucharisteo

This past week, on the suggestion of a trusted friend and after reading the description on Amazon, I started reading the book One Thousand Gifts. It's written by a young woman (well, not too young as she has six kids!) desperate to live her life fully, free from bitterness and anger. Just that synopsis in and of itself was enough to convince me I needed to read this book. I am just to chapter four (trying to pace myself to a chapter a day so I can really take in each chapter) and I have started my own thousand gift list. I am eager to pour out my heart in thanksgiving to God, to fully embrace the full life, the joyful life, that Christ offers. I am so tired of living in myself, so wrapped up in me me me that I miss out on Him. Writing down my list, taking time to thank God for everything, requires of me more than a simple "thanks for everything". Ann Voskamp poetically describes it as this: "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...life-changing gratitude does not fasten to a life unless nailed through with one very specific nail at a time."


It's funny, reading this book, because Sam and I, for several months now, have been, in a very small part, doing this on our own every Sunday. After long, painful trips of fighting and bickering on our way to church, we came to realize that Satan had been using Sunday morning run-out-the-door-we're-late rides to church to get inside our heads and our marriage and we were fed up. So now, on the way to church every Sunday, we are not allowed to talk about anything, we simply take turns sharing what we are thankful for in that moment. It has been amazing and revolutionary to see how that simple game, ten minutes out of our day, changes the tone of the rest of the day. I have been more free to worship God and love my husband than ever before. So I'm so excited to see how such a seemingly simple idea, one thousand gifts, will radically change my attitude, my heart focus, and the way I interact with my family.

a few graces on my list tonight:
The ticking of the clock, it keeps me sane!
indie, cuddled up at my feet, doing her best to protect me while Sam is at work
Ada's little sighs and coos, reminding me of her life and life giving joy.
the 7am hour, as that is when Sam comes home from work, when he can come cuddle with me, before Ada will wake up.

"God is not in need of magnifying by us so small, but the reverse. It's our lives that are little and we have falsely inflated self, and in thanks we decrease and the world returns right. I say thanks and I swell with Him, and I swell the world and He stirs me, joy all afoot." Xoxo