Thankful On Thursday – It’s Not About Me

This past Friday I had a life changing moment with God while I was driving home from the airport.  (You can read about it here.)  It might sound like I am being dramatic by using the phrase “life changing”, but I’m not.  Every true encounter with God is life changing.  It requires you to either move forward with Him, or back from Him.  This was definitely not the first life changing encounter I have had nor was it the last. I had another this morning. 

Since last Friday I have made it a point to physically get on my knees, face down, and pray as the first thing I do every morning.  It is amazing what 5-10 minutes will do to your spiritual posture when your physical posture is bowed before God.  It has been amazing to start every day in this manner.  However, today was different.  I got on my knees, put my forehead on the ground, tucked in my elbows and started silently talking to God.  Almost immediately, God spoke to me. 

(If you have never heard from God, for me it is like in old war movies when the code comes through and machines print the message on those long thin strips of paper.  It’s as if one of those is in my head.  I’m talking or thinking and out of nowhere a random message runs through my head.  It interrupts what I was saying or thinking, and all my attention is now on that message.  For me, that’s when I know God is speaking.  This might not be true for anyone else, but this is how God speaks to me, and it does take practice to know God’s voice from your own thoughts, but if you pray for God to reveal His voice to you, then you will start to hear Him.) 

He said, “It’s not about you.  I am not here for you, you are here for Me.”  and I realized that I have been saying things like, “God, I am so thankful for your presence in my life.  Thank you for what you have done for me.  Thank you for saving me… I, I, I, me, me, me, my, my, my.”  My eyes popped open, “WHOA!  Did that really just happen?”  I thought about it for a moment, letting the truth of it sink in.  I thought I needed God to save me because of my sin, I needed God to be present in my life because of my loneliness, and I needed the Holy Spirit to fill me so that I could have joy and peace in all circumstances…  But, it’s not about me and these things will only come when my life becomes all about Him.  WOW. 

It was heavy for first thing in the morning, but boy did I wake up fast.  After the few seconds of pondering that led to all of this I said, “God, it is all about you.  I am here for You.  Please, what can do to glorify You?”  As soon as the words were formed a video came to my head and I felt His thoughts in mine, “Share My glory though this.”  So, I got up and here I am, writing to you.

This is a video I found last Friday.  As soon as I got home from my life changing drive I looked up “pulsar” on You Tube to show Jason the example I had just learned about how the stars are worshiping God.  One video led to another and I found Louie Giglio taking individual songs of creation’s praise and putting them together so that we can get just a glimpse of what God hears as all of creation worships him every second of every day. 

This video is fifteen minutes, but I am BEGGING you to watch it.  I got off my knees this morning and wrote this post because I felt the God of creation telling me that you needed to hear it. 

If you want more, there are entire messages by Louie on You Tube that you can check out.  Trust me, you will never regret listening to a message by this man. 

Thankful on Thursday–1000 Gifts App

You can read my original Thankful on Thursday post here.

It all started with a book called 1000 Gifts.  It is about one woman’s journey to joy by giving thanks in all things, even the smallest of things.  She set out to write down 1000 things she was thankful for.  The book was given to me and I have given it to others whom I know have given it to more.  It’s a beautiful book and one that I recommend above almost all others.  

Inspired, I originally set out to write down 1000 things I was thankful for.  The notebook soon got lost amidst the changing of locations and the changing of the bags.  However, today I was on the author’s blog and saw that there is now a free app.  I immediately downloaded the app.  My gift log reads #1. I am thankful for this app so that I will never again loose my list of thanksgiving.  The picture above was taken while I still had the notebook in my purse.  I was at a hotel in Boston.  A dad lifted his little girl to see out the window and she squealed with delight, “Good morning sunshine!”  I was so thankful to have seen that.

It’s great! You can upload pictures and media of the things you are thankful for, or you can just type them out. 

(The photo below is hyperlinked if you want to visit a website that explains the app in greater detail.) 

Thankful on Thursday – The Coffee Conclusion

Many of you remember my post “God Asked Me To Give Up Coffee”.  I must say, until I looked up the post just now for the hyperlink, I had no idea it has been almost a year since I first gave up coffee.  Actually, it’s been almost exactly one year ago.  (You might want to start with that post if this post is to make any sense at all.)

The entire thing has morphed into I don’t know what.  It started as prayer about a certain situation.  Once the situation seemed resolved I thought it was time to go back to drinking coffee.  So, one day I brewed a pot.

However, when I went to drink the coffee I felt that tugging in the pit of my stomach.  (Some people say they feel a tugging on their heart, but I feel it in the deep pit of my stomach.  I call it a gut feeling.)  It still wasn’t right for me to drink coffee.  “Why God? Why?”  I felt the answer wash over me in a thought, “I do not have to explain Myself to you.  I need you to trust Me and obey Me.”  I threw out the coffee.  If there is anything I’ve learned in my short 30 years on earth, it’s to trust and obey God when He speaks. 

We can call that moment a victory.  I made the coffee, but didn’t drink it.  I wish I could say that has been true for the entire year.  This is not the case.  About 3 months ago I started trying to figure out why God would just take away my coffee for the rest of my life.  At first I thought, “Well, God must be helping me with my iron deficiency.”  (I have had a low iron count since birth.  It’s my normal, but it looks bad on paper.  Coffee and tea supposedly deplete the  body of iron.)  I just thought it was for my health in that way.  Then, after several months without caffeine I noticed that I felt really good.  From the time I woke up until I went to bed I felt good.  I had no problem staying up all night on my flights oversees and I never experienced jet lag on this side of the world or that.  I thought, “Oh, God must be helping me to be my best for work.”  The craziest thought I had was that I had some secret illness that coffee would cause to worsen but as long I stayed away from coffee I would never know I was sick and I would lead a perfectly normal life.  I never said this out loud because I have been referred to as a hypochondriac, and I detest that title.  So, Jason and I did some research about the health risks and benefits of coffee.  When consumed moderately, it has lots of positives and only one real negative – depleting the body of iron.  Based on our research I convinced myself that coffee is good for you and that I was robbing my body of its benefits by not drinking it.  So, I fixed myself some coffee.  I took one drink and had to pour it out.  I felt so guilty.  It’s not the kind of guilty that you feel as a kid when you eat something you shouldn’t…well maybe it is.  I just felt that awful churning in my gut that this wasn’t right.  So, I poured it out again.  About two weeks ago was my last hang up.  I just out and out fixed myself some coffee and drank it.  I fixed some the next day and after about two sips I knew I was disobeying God, so I poured it out again.  Then, yesterday I was on a flight home from Houston.  I had the thought that it would be nice to get a cup of coffee on my way home and I felt nothing.  I didn’t feel the “I need you to trust me on this” feeling that I always got when debating a cup of coffee.  I started asking the Lord if it was okay to drink coffee and there was a weightlessness with my thoughts.  Normally, when I thought about coffee there was a heavy feeling that came with it.  The heaviness was gone.  I felt free to drink a cup of coffee.  Still leery of myself I decided to continue praying about it.  I prayed about it last night and again this morning.  Nothing.  So, this morning I made myself some coffee and I have been enjoying it guilt free. 

Now that I am on the other side I wonder about the coffee fast to which God called me.  At this point I believe it was so that I would be in  practice at hearing His voice and trusting it as such.  Some things came up this past week that could have a dramatic effect on mine and Jason’s lives and on my career.  I had to make a snap decision, but I knew the voice of God against the voice of reason.  I choose the thing that makes the least amount of sense because it is what God, through my gut, was telling me to do.  Jason and I are now at His mercy to work out the future and the details as we have zero control of the outcome.  We are both very comfortable with our decision because we trust that God always wants what’s best for us.  It’s just up to us to take the path He lays out for us. 

I still don’t know if the coffee fast truly started as prayer for another person, or if I just assumed it was for that person since it started while I was spending a great deal of time praying for the person.  It’s neither here nor there.  What does matter is that through my coffee fast I have remained very practiced at hearing God’s voice.  So, when I needed to make a very important decision very quickly I knew God’s voice immediately.  One year without coffee was definitely worth that. 

Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways,”
            declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Thankful on Thursday – God’s Name

All of my life (as long as I can remember) I have heard people pray like this, “Lord, we praise Your name.  We thank you for who you are.” and so forth and so on.  I have even used these phrases myself when I’m not sure what to say, and it’s no wonder because the Psalms are littered with verses that sound just like these prayers.  The funny thing is I never really thought about them until today.  They were just phrases that sounded good when I prayed out loud.  I believed them.  I was truly praising God for His name, it’s just that I never stopped to truly consider “What is His name?”

I am in the middle of the study Experiencing God, which I am doing with my friend Laura.  Today’s lesson is on the name of God, which is I AM.  When Moses asked who he should tell the people God is God replied, “I AM WHO I AM”.  The beautiful thing about this, the thing that somehow never clicked in my brain is that we fill in the blanks.  “Today God is my strength because I am at the end of my rope.”  “Today God is my provider because I don’t know how we are going to pay the bills.”  “Today God is my refuge because everyone is mad at me.”  “Today God is my comfort because those words really hurt.”  “Today God is my joy because life is good.”  “Today God is my peace because I should be stressed, but I’m not.  I know He has it all under control.”  “Today God is my salvation because He has saved me from the life I was living.  He has made me a new person.”  Etc… The list goes on and on because God is who He is.  He is EVERYTHING you need Him to be. 

What I have learned is that experience is the follow-up to this.  We believe these things - “God is provider.” – when we need Him to provide.  He proves himself to us by providing, and at that point we have experienced Him, which is how we gain intimate knowledge that God is provider, which is how we grow more intimate in our relationship with Him.  It’s a wonderful cycle. 

I must say that it is my belief that Jesus clearly stated, “I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  I believe that God works in people’s lives even if they reject Jesus, however, you can not intimately know God or experience Him without first accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life.  To know God, you must acknowledge you are a sinner and that you need Jesus’ salvation.  You must be willing to walk away from everything in your life.  You don’t have to walk away from it before you accept Jesus because He will help you desire to walk away from once He has cleansed you from it (by His death for you on the cross).  You just have to be willing. Once you give your life to Jesus, you will begin to intimately know the Father.  There is nothing more satisfying in life.  NOTHING!  Money and relationships will never provide true and lasting love, joy, peace, comfort, strength, refuge, deliverance, hope, help, confidence, redemption, and on and on.  (There are books you can buy about all the names of God.)

It might seem far fetched that you could wake up and live every day of your life with no anxiety, no worry about the future, no loneliness, no need to prove yourself, no hate toward others, no animosity, no strife, no regrets.  However, it is possible.  This is how I wake up everyday.  It’s also how thousands of others wake up everyday.  Find a Christian, a true Christian who everyday gives their life to God and who trusts Him with everything (you will know them by the light in their eyes), and ask them if this is not true of their lives.  It is true.  Jesus says “He who finds his life will loose it, but he who is willing to loose his life for my sake will find it.”(Matt. 10:39)  Meaning that if you will give up control of your life and give it to God, who has your best interest at heart, you will gain an abundant life here on earth that will carry over into heaven when you die.  Please email me if you would like to discuss further.  I am always open for questions and debate. 

The purpose for this post is to share a song.  This is probably my favorite song right now.  It’s just that after today this song has new meaning for me.  I wanted to share it with you. (Yahweh means: I AM)

Thankful on Thursday - Seasons

When I left home on October 12 the tree in our back yard looked like this.

I got home after dark last night, and when I woke up this morning the tree looked like this.

I couldn’t believe it.  In a matter of two weeks the tree had changed completely.  On the outside, it seems as though the tree changed for the worse, but if you know the science of the changing seasons, you understand that shedding leaves is how a tree ensures its survival through the winter.  It will reawaken in Spring and get to live beautifully again.  The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:1 (KJV) reads, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.  This song by Nicole Nordeman is on of my favorites.

I’m thankful for the changing seasons, both in nature and in our lives.  What would life be without them?

Our House Is Under Contract!

This is a Thankful on Thursday post even though I couldn’t post it until today.

If you didn’t know about our “crazy” prayer request you can read about it here.  I wrote “crazy” because everyone else thought it was crazy.  I thought it was a perfectly valid request because it’s what we needed to happen. 

So, for follow-up… We put the house on the market on Thursday, June 9, 2011.  The first and second showings were Monday, June 13.  We received two offers on that day, so highest and best offers were due on Tuesday, June 14 by 8 p.m.  By Thursday we had all the counter offers agreed upon and by Friday, June 17 we were under contract.  It was one week and one day after the house went on the market!  Thank you for helping us pray for this!!!

Another fun thing (not!) is that, because of our schedules (which never matched up), I had to go pick out a house in Ohio all by myself.  So, last Thursday I got home from being gone for a week.  I had two girl-friends stay with me while their guys and Jason were at a bachelor party.  The next day we all went to North Oklahoma City and spent the weekend in hotel rooms that our friends had bought us for their wedding.  It was a really fun weekend.  They are an awesome couple.  Sunday morning I woke up and left the hotel early.  I stopped at home to grab a few things and then headed to Dallas to catch a flight to Ohio.  I arrived in Columbus around midnight so I stayed the night in Columbus. 

I was in the middle of working on an upcoming work trip overseas.  I had been having a TERRIBLE time getting a hold of a caterer because of the weekend and the time change.  So, I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. Monday morning to try and catch a caterer during their work morning.  No luck.  I set my alarm and went to bed.  I woke up on my own at 8:30 a.m. and panicked because my alarm had not gone off!  I checked my phone and realized that I hadn’t changed the time to accommodate the Eastern Time Zone.  Ugh.  I stayed in bed and dialed another caterer.  No answer.  I dialed the FBO (Fixed-Base Operator – where we park the aircraft) for the fifth day in about five days.  Someone answered!  I actually talked to a human and he gave me the name of a hotel that could do our catering.  I called the hotel and the nice lady gave me the email address of the man who does the catering.  I composed and email, pressed send and then waited.  I got a clock symbol, which means that it’s not sending.  It’s been an hour since I woke up an hour late.  I knew that I wasn’t doing so good on time at this point, but I had to get this order in.  I walked to the window in my room to see if I could get a better signal.  Nothing.  So, I take out the phone battery and then turn the phone back on to reset it to the tower in Columbus.  The phone comes back to life and I was immediately bombarded with emails.  My trip has been canceled.  AHHHH!!!  Why is this happening??? And of all days??  Thank God that even though I had planned to meet the realtor at 10:30 a.m. she didn’t schedule the first showing until 12:30 p.m.  (She must work with people or something.)  At 10:30 a.m. I jump in the shower.  I put in my eyes (contacts), brushed my teeth and threw my hair up wet.  By 11:00 a.m.  I was on the road headed toward our new hometown.  I got there right at 12:30 p.m. and the afternoon of searching began.   

Here is a picture of my drive.  Does the terrain look familiar?

I recorded voice memos about each house and took pictures of the ones that I thought were promising.  It was exhausting because there is no AT&T cell phone reception there, so I couldn’t talk to Jason at all.  We got calls through every now and then, but they didn’t last long.  Once the realtor and I finished looking at the all the houses and then revisiting the first one again I drove to Lima for the night.  I unwound with Texas Roadhouse take-out and The Time Traveler’s Wife on HBO.

Finally around 9 p.m. Ohio time Jason and I sat down and talked about all the houses.  I had already sent him all the voice memos so we just had to discuss the finalists.  During the process Jason kept going to the one house he really wanted and I kept saying, “That house isn’t an option.  I thought so little of it that it was the only one I didn’t record a voice memo for.”  He kept saying, “I don’t understand what’s wrong with it.” To which I would respond, “I don’t remember.”  The one I wanted was one of the most expensive ones we looked at, which is par for the course with me.  But, because my trip had canceled I was rudely reminded that a house isn’t everything.  Not worrying about bills is worth everything you sacrifice when you give up a nice house.  So, Jason and I re-evaluated what we were looking for.  At 9:40 p.m. Eastern time I texted the realtor and asked to see 3 more houses and to once again see the one that I had previously discounted.  She said she would see what she could do.  We had until 11 a.m. the next morning to put an offer on a house.  She was only able to get us into Jason’s first choice house/my reject house, so I met her there at 9 a.m.  Amazingly enough I walked through the house again and fell in love with it.  It has a brand new kitchen and laundry room, and the rest of the house needs some of our magic touch, but it’s nothing that we can’t make beautiful. 

As you guessed it, by 10:40 a.m. we had a offer in on the house.  I left and drove back to Columbus.  As I was getting ready to board the plane the realtor called back with the counter offer and we accepted.  We were under contract.  We are closing on our house in Norman on July 18 and closing on our new house on July 25. 

Praise the Lord and thank you so much for your prayers!

Blessings

You have probably already read this post, but it had to be taken down for discretionary reasons.  So, now that EVERYONE is aware of our plans I am able to repost it.  It was originally posted on June 3.)

Our life is quickly changing right before our eyes.  On Saturday, May 14 Jason and I went to breakfast.  It’s our way of taking a time out together.  I had been out of town working and my parents were on their way from Dallas to help us get the house ready to sell.  For months we have been talking about which law school Jason would attend, and it was finally time to make a decision.  While we were sitting in a diner booth, 50’s music playing in the background, we decided to move to Ohio where Jason will attend Ohio Northern University.

It’s been a whirl wind ever since.  We bought our house in the middle of a remodel, so over the past 2 years we have been slowly trying to get it all finished.  Now, we are quickly trying to get it all finished.  I’ve been out of town for the past 10 days.  Jason has been working on the house every night.  We are signing contracts on Tuesday to put it on the market, but it’s not ready and we still have a lot to do.  What is stressful is that we are not only trying to finish everything, but we are trying to clean and pack and find a place for ourselves and for our animals.  And, not only do we have to sell this house, but we have to buy another one 951 miles away, close on it and get moved in so that Jason can attend law school orientation on August 24. 

I woke up in a hotel room this past Tuesday morning.  I wasn’t in a huge hurry to get out of bed, so I called Jason.  We were talking about everything that needed to be done and this decision and that.  Exasperated, I quickly got off the phone, not because of anything Jason had said, but because of the pressure of it all.  I needed time to digest everything before I could even think straight about how to begin accomplishing it all.  I threw the covers off of myself and rolled over.  As I put my feet on the floor and began to stand I said out loud, “Thank you Lord, that this is not my home!” 

Sometimes it’s nice to see life in perspective.  I am so thankful that in that instant of wanting to breakdown from the pressure, I was reminded that this is not my home.  My home is in heaven where my mansion is finished and waiting.  I get to spend eternity in a world where creation is more beautiful that my mind can fathom and where my mind is in a constant state of peace. 

Not long after I got up I heard this song on the radio.  I think it was played just for me.  I dropped to my knees and listened to it in a state of worship.  It’s a beautiful song that says, “Sometimes your blessings come through rain drops, sometimes your healing comes through tears, sometimes a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near… The pain reminds this heart that this this is not, this is not our home.”

I love this song because it speaks to anyone and everyone.  No matter how big or small our troubles seem through the eyes of this world, our God meets us where we are.  If our best friend moves away, if our dog dies, if our leg is broken and we can’t play in the big game, if we lose our job, can’t pay a bill, can’t get our weight where we want it, or if our house is taken by a tornado, it’s all the same to God.  If it matters to us, then it matters to Him. 

Please pray for Jason and I as we go through this process.  It matters to us.  I am praying that our house will be under contract by Tuesday, June 14.  That is exactly one week from the day we are putting it on the market.  Please help me pray for this.  It will be a true miracle from God when it does, and we will give Him all the glory for it.  (We will give Him the glory anyway, but how awesome would it be?!)

Blessings,

The Miracle: A Follow-Up To Thankful On Thursday

In Chapter 2 of One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp, she discovers that eucharisteo is the cause of miracles.  She points out that Jesus thanked God for the 5 loaves of bread and the 2 fish and then there was the miracle of feeding five thousand.  Jesus broke the bread with the disciples and then gave thanks.  The miracle was that He endured the cross and then rose from the dead. 

She says:

“How there is thanks…and then the mind-blowing miracle!”

“Eucharisteo – thanksgiving – always precedes the miracle.”

As she is on her journey of thanksgiving the sees miracles happen before her eyes. 

Yesterday I shared my prayer.  It was a first for me, the prayer of thanksgiving.  (You can read it here.)  Wouldn’t you know that as soon as I finished my blog the world awoke around me and I was incredibly annoyed.  I prayed to God again… “How can my heart be truly thankful for something one minute and totally annoyed by the same thing just moments later?  God, please help my attitude.  Please change my heart.  Make the thanksgivings true in my life.”

And then the miracle.

I had just gotten home from a couple of errands.  I made a quick lunch and sat on the couch to eat it.  Jason was outside snaking our drain.  He came in and ate with me and then said, “Are you ready to get started on this house?” 

I thought, but didn’t dare say, “Um, what?  Yes, please.”

At 2:00 p.m., or so, Jason led the way by putting away last week’s laundry.  I started by cleaning off the counter.  And then, I moved to the pantry.  I threw away all of our expired items and rearranged the entire thing.  This cleared the way for me to clean out two lower cabinets, one that held paper goods (a point of frustration for me) and one that held tea and coffee supplies (which also didn’t work for me).  I was able to clean out the cabinets by moving and organizing the contents into the pantry.  I then moved to two junk drawers in the kitchen.  They held old magazines, tools from when we moved in 2 years ago and an array of unnecessary cords and other items.  Jason was working on other areas of the house.  By 7:00 p.m. we had 6 trash bags full of clutter that had once been a point of stress in my life. 

I woke-up today with a feeling of lightness about my shoulders, and I saw it.  I saw the miracle that had come from a prayer of thanksgiving for an abundance of food and for a life too full to clean the messes.  And just like that it was done for me.  Today, I thank God for organized cabinets and feelings of lightness that come from empty spaces under kitchen countertops,  and for sunshine and old bread from pantry full that will lead to one of my favorite activities: a trip the the duck pond.  Today I thank God for room to breathe.  I thank God for the miracle.

Thankful On Thursday

I love that today is Thursday.  Right before work got too hectic for me to write I decided to spend Thursdays being thankful.  (You can see the original post here.)  I am reading a book called 1000 Gifts, by Ann Voskamp.  It is an amazing book about… On second thought, just read my first post.  The book is getting deeper and deeper.  At first I thought it was a wonderful concept…God gives grace, we give thanksgiving, God gives joy.  Like I said, wonderful concept.  However, now she is getting into the nitty gritty of what it really means to be thankful for God’s grace.  It means seeing everything as God’s grace – the good, the bad and the ugly.  In order to do that we must trust God.  We must trust Him in everything.  One chapter I read yesterday dealt with anger and another with fear/stress.  Here are two different quotes from those two chapters.

“Feel thanks and it’s absolutely impossible to feel angry.  We can only experience one emotion at a time.  And we get to choose – which emotion do we want to feel?”

“If authentic, saving belief is the act of trusting, then to choose stress is an act of disbelief…atheism.  Anything less than gratitude and trust is practical atheism.  I wince.  Perhaps the opposite of faith is not doubt.  Perhaps the opposite of faith is fear.  To lack faith perhaps isn’t as much an intellectual disbelief in the existence of God as fear and distrust that there is a good God.  If I don’t emotionally believe, practically believe, in the the goodness of God, am I a believer?”

Then, she puts it all together.

“Thanks is what builds trust.”

This book is changing my life because it’s changing the way I see life.  When I engage in what I am learning I live out my faith, and when I live out my faith I understand fully that to live any other way is futile.  

I am going to share my morning prayer with you because I think it is the ultimate example of how I can see my own life changing.  I will preface by saying that I was only home for about four 36-hour periods in the past four to five weeks.  This means that I basically had time to come home, clean the bathroom, do laundry, pack and leave again.  I live with my husband and my brother.  They are basically bachelors in this home during times like these.  (I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about the details of what I come home to.)  During my busy times I generally get home in the evenings, sit on the couch with my husband, and refuse to look around.  The next morning I get up, get the urgent things done, enjoy lunch with my brother, the evening with my husband, and the next morning I leave again.  This has been my pattern.  Today, the pattern is broken.  I am not scheduled to work again for 10 days.  This means that I allow myself to look around.  Generally, in my humanity, I experience frustrated anger.  I look at everything that needs to be done just to catch-up before the acts of attempting to finish our remodel can even be started.  I huff and puff and heave and slam.  I believe that I am the only one who cares and I get angry. 

(In my husband’s defense, he is working on his thesis for his master’s degree and is hardly ever home.  My brother basically sleeps here.  I don’t think he even uses our glasses.  They are just as busy as I and none of us has time for this house.)

Today marks a turning point in my life.  Today I decided to live eucharisteo.  I sorted the mail, threw away the glossy pages, piled the bills, moved dishes to sink, went to empty dishwasher and saw that it was already empty, looked back at full sink and CHOSE to be thankful.  Walked to suitcase, gathered journal and began writing…

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Heavenly Father, which is my favorite description of You, thank you for this day.  Thank you for eucharisteo.  Thank you for Ann Voskamp.  Thank you that dishes in sink next to empty dishwasher means that husband is alive and well.  Thank you that dirty house means life is being lived and that unorganized drawers means much fun elsewhere.  Thank you that hair on floor and funny smells means four legged creatures share in our love.  Thank you that no milk when milk is craved means strong bones elsewhere.  Thank you that too much food to fit in pantry and spills onto counter means abundance and stomachs full.  Thank you that more clothes than fit in closets can hold and more books than shelves can bear mean we shall want for nothing.  Thank you that medical bills prove health and insurance denials spark creativity.  Thank you that more than can be done in one day gives drive to live another.  Thank you that sun shining through windows means cat basking and dog anxious.  Thank you for legs to run and lungs to breathe.  Thank you that the heart-breaking rejection from law school of choice means eyes for the one with arms wide open.  Thank you that weariness toward one house brings dreams of another.  Thank you for silent mornings and the peace of two men sleeping soundly.  Thank you for space heaters that warm toes and robes that keep out chill.  Thank you for glasses that give sight and contacts that transform eyes.  Thank you for healed sunburns and reminders of sunscreen.  Thank you for messes that wonderful laid-back people can’t see.  Thank you for the calm those people bring to this life anal and hectic.  Thank you for this life and the blessings that are peace and the blessings that are chaos.  Thank you for time, for one hour this morning that is mine, and Yours.  Thank you dear Jesus.   Thank you my Lord. 

 

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.