Thankful

 One Thousands Gifts is a book I have been reading for awhile. Ann Voskamp’s story is not happily ever after.  As a child, her sister was crushed under a truck in front of her and her mother.  Consequently, her mother checked herself into a psychiatric hospital and her father couldn’t find God.  As an adult, she stood beside her brother-in-law as he buried his first two sons.  Voskamp is a wife and mother who does not grin through the pain of raising 6 children but battles to believe that in God is joy, and that there are as many gifts amid the grittiness of life as in the moments of celebration. This came as a result of her taking up a dare from a friend to make a list of a 1000 gifts.

 The laundry keeps piling up, dishes never end, kids fight and people die.  But regardless of circumstances, the dare of the “gift list” showed Voskamp a way to live even through the dullness and hurts of life. She learned to look for gifts, blessings everywhere, in every moment.

the smell of freshly baked bread

a hug from a dear friend

fresh vegetables. 

warm blankets in a cozy bed.  

the smell of home.

  All of those moments are around us everyday. I confess I have not thanked God enough for laughter with friends. Here is the most important part of this dare. Thanksgiving. Incessant thanksgiving for every one of those blessings. Thanksgiving enriches our lives to seize the importance of the moment. 

How would our lives be different if we stopped and thanked God for all the beauty He has surrounded us with? How much less time would we spend worrying or griping about things we have no control over if we remembered that God faithfully gives us light that suddenly captures the dark in the early morning? How much would we trust Him when we know that He who empowers us to parent with grace when we have no inkling to do so promised that He would be with us always? Because those moments are with us everywhere, all the time, they testify to the bounteousness and faithfulness of our God. 

 When our eyes are opened to what is and straining to find more of those grace filled moments, we are fully living in every moment, enjoying all of God's innumerable gifts. I have decided to take up the dare to write down a thousands gifts and thank God for every single one of them. I have been blessed with a life full of blessings and too often I have been too busy or looked far out to see them. I am ready to open my eyes and see what is right in front of me that I have been missing all this time. And I am gonna start now...

warm blankets and hot chocolate on a snowy day...

extra bacon on hamburgers =)

"Do not disdain the small. If we miss the small moments, we miss the whole".

Tough journey

I realize this is not the warmest way to start a blog but truthfully, one of the reasons why I decided to start blogging is to share what I believe this journey on earth is teaching me. And honestly it is far from a walk in a park. Actually it looks more like the tough mudder. So here we go...

So many changes have taken place in the past few months and they severely tested some of the principles I had decided to live my life by. I can see the hand of God in all of it and I am grateful for it. Still, it doesn't make it less painful when you have to learn your lessons the hard way. One of the ways I was tested about my character was through my relationships. I have always considered myself to have a good head on my shoulders but these relationships have made me discover sides of my personality and my heart and mind that I did not know were there or that were not what I had imagined they would be. Relationships are like mirrors that reflect who you are and I couldn't help but stare, completely bewildered by the person that who was looking back at me in the mirror. I will share one of the discoveries I have come across.

One of my biggest revelations was how much I have leaned on my own understanding and knowledge to navigate my relationships. Having a lot of head-knowledge is great (and I have read up a lot on relationships) but unless you are confronted with the situations, unless you feel that myriad of emotions and feelings associated with them and have to make a choice on how to react, you can't be sure of how you will do so. I admit that I have failed to respond to situations in a biblical way because I was caught up in the politically correct way to do it. And every time I would sit back stunned and think: " I have read about this, I know what is the way to go about it but somehow I didn't do it right" Anybody who knows me can attest to the fact that I am fiercely independent, very logical and hopelessly left-brained. But when I committed to really love people, give myself to them as much as Christ is calling me to do, very rarely did I use my left-brain. As a matter of fact, I tried let Jesus guide me and boy does He like to lead me on unfamiliar territories. He makes me feel indescribable joy at times and breaks me to pieces whenever I need it. There is nothing logical about the way He makes me experience life and I wouldn't have it any other way because I have never felt more alive. I have scrapes and bruises from trying to navigate this unfamiliar territory on my own but He picks me up when I trip over obstacles and off we go again, hand in hand.
I am still learning how to completely and unabashedly trust Him and remember that He has never failed me. It takes conscious, moment-to moment efforts from me to do that and I am so clumsy still. Psalm 23 is my constant companion for I know I am still a long way from home