On Counting our Blessings: The "One Thousand Gifts" Book and App

 

Does gratitude come easy? Not for me. That's why Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts book and mobile app captured my attention. Let's start with the book.

 

Seeing and Receiving our Blessings: Ann Voskamp's Book One Thousand Gifts

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As the summary of One Thousand Gifts reads, Voskamp's book shows readers "a way of seeing that opens [our] eyes to ordinary amazing grace." I roundly concur. (At time of writing, I've read about half of Voskamp's book.)

I'd like to share one of my favorite parts from One Thousand Gifts. Voskamp describes how things change for her when she begins to literally count her blessings...

 

Excerpt from One Thousand Gifts
 

Across the backside [of the scrap paper], on a whim, a dare, I scratch it down: Gift List. I begin the list. Not of gifts I want but of gifts I already have. Morning shadows across the old floors Jam piled high on the toast Cry of blue jay from high in the spruce... They are just the common things and maybe I don't even know they are gifts really until I write them down and that is really what they look like. Gifts He bestows. This writing it down - it is sort of like ... unwrapping love...

Writing the list, it makes me feel ... happy. All day. I can hardly believe how it does that, that running stream of consciousness, river I drink from and I'm quenched in, a surging stream of grace and it's wild how it sweeps me away ... I can't understand why it does that... Well, if all these were gifts that God gives - then wasn't my writing down the list like ... receiving. Like taking with thanks... "And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them..." Gave thanks... [Jesus] took the bread, even the bread of death, and gave thanks. I look down at my list. This thanks that I am doing - it seems so ... crude. Trivial. If this list is the learning of the language of [gratitude,] this feels like ... guttural groanings. But perhaps the "full of grace" vocabulary begins haltingly, simply, like a child, thankful for the childlike... But doesn't the kingdom of heaven belong to such as these?

Sharing our Blessings: One Thousand Gifts App

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When I truly see God's gifts I want to share them with others. That's where the mobile app comes in. Learn more about the app.

Learn more about Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts book.

Visit Ann Voskamp's blog at www.aholyexperience.com

 

- Adam Forrest, Zondervan Internet Team

(This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer's opinions are their own, and are shared for information purposes only. To receive new blogposts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.)