Thankful On Thursday

I’ve been reading a book called One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp. 

This book is written in first person (I did, I was, etc.).  The author starts by talking about all the loss she has experienced in her life.  Her sister died when they were young, and her parents never recovered from her sister’s death.  There was always a cloud of discontentment in the way that life had gone.  When she was grown, married and had kids she was diagnosed with cancer.  She one day realized that discontentment with what God has done means that you don’t believe that He is good.  You don’t trust that He is good, or that He has your best interest at heart.  But then, she started to unveil a truth. 

     “His love letter forever silences any doubts: ‘His secret purpose framed from the very beginning [is] to bring us to our full glory’ (1 Corinthians 2:7 NEB).  He means to rename us – to return us to our true names, our truest selves.  He means to heal our soul holes.  From the very beginning, that Eden beginning, that has always been and always is, to this day, His secret purpose – our return to our full glory.  Appalling – that He would!  Us, unworthy.  And yet since we took a bite out of the fruit and tore into our own souls, that drain hole where joy seeps away, God’s had this wild secretive plan.  He means to fill us with glory again. 

     With glory and grace.  Grace, it means ‘favor,’ from the Latin gratia.”

As she dealt with the cancer and thoughts of what to do with the precious time she has left, she wondered what Jesus did when he knew that he only had 12 hours to live.

     “The face of Jesus flashes.  Jesus, the God-Man with his own termination date.  Jesus, the God-Man who came to save me from prisons of fear and guilt and depression and sadness.  With an expiration of less than twelve hours, what does Jesus count as all most important?

     ‘And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them…’ (Luke 22:19).

    This.  I live in this place, make porridge, scrub toilets, do laundry, and for days, weeks, I am brave and i do get our of bed and I think on this. I study this, the full life, the being fully ready for the end.  I start to think that maybe there is a way out of nightmares to dreams?  Maybe?

     I thumb, run my fingers across the pages of the heavy and thick books bound.  I read it slowly.  In the original language, ‘he gave thanks’ reads ‘eucharisteo.’

     I underline it on the page.  Can it lay a sure foundation under a life?  Offer the fullest life?

     The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning ‘grace.’  Jesus took the bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks.  He took the bread and knew it to be a gift and gave thanks.

     But there is more, and I read it.  Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, envelopes the Greek word for grace, chara, meaning ‘joy.’  Joy.  Ah…yes.  I might be needing me some of that.  That might be what the quest for more is all about – that which Augustine claimed, ‘Without exception…all try their hardest to reach the same goal, that is, joy.’”

Skip ahead a few more paragraphs and she puts it all together…

     “Is the height of my chara joy dependant on the depths of my eucaristeo thanks?

     So then as long as thanks is possible… I think this through.  As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible.  Joy is always possible.  Whenever, meaning – now; wherever, meaning – here.  The holy grail of joy is not in some exotic location or some emotional mountain peak experience.  The joy wonder could be here!  Here, in the messy, piercing ache of now, joy might be – unbelievably – possible!  The only place we need see before we die is this place of seeing God, here and now. 

     I whisper it out loud, let the tongue feel these sounds, the ear hear their truth.

     Charis.  Grace.

     Eucharisteo.  Thanksgiving.

     Chara.  Joy.

     A triplet of stars, a constellation in the black.

     A threefold cord that might hold a life?  Offer a way up into the fullest life?

     Grace, thanksgiving, joy.  Eucharisteo.”

It might be hard to understand all of this, since you are not getting every word she says, but what she figures out is that God gives us grace.  We give Him thanksgiving for His grace.  We receive joy in our thanksgiving.  It is essentially the formula for Joy.  However, it starts and ends with God.  He gives the grace (favor, gifts…), we give the thanksgiving, He gives the joy.  It’s a beautiful circle. 

This book is amazing.  I was on chapter 3 when I gave it to someone who had asked me twice within 2 hours why I was so happy all the time.  I had withdrawals, so I finally found the book at Borders and dug back in.  She is very poetic in her writing, which makes this a beautiful, enjoyable, life-changing read. 

I am going to take her dare to live fully, and I am going to come up with my list of 1000 things I am thankful for.  I will share here on Thursdays what I have thanked God for that week.  I would love for you to join me.  I don’t have time now because I have to fly, but I will get a button and if you want to have Thankful on Thursday as part of your weekly blog you can write your post and then link it to mine.  How beautiful to have lists and lists of the things we are thankful for, and what joy can come of it.

See you next week with my first list.