One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

I've just recently started reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. It's a non-fiction, religious book written about Ann's experience and growth with the idea of eternal thanksgiving. The book begins with describing how Ann's sister was killed as a child and how afterwards, she and her family had a hard time accepting God's grace. But as she gets older, Ann realizes she has a desire to live a fuller, more meaningful life. Reading her Bible, she comes across the concept of eucharisteo and traces the word back to its Greek origins, grace, joy and thanksgiving. In attempt to live fully with abundant thanks, Ann begins a continuous list of things she loves. Her friend dared her to write a thousand things she's thankful for. She adds to the list several times per day, with little things she's grateful for, such as "118. Crackle in fireplace" and "119. Still warm cookies" (Voskamp 53).

Each chapter focuses on a different facet of thanksgiving, of eucharisteo. She describes how joy can be attained anywhere, as long as there is thanks. Ann talks about how truly living in the moment and thanking God can slow time down. How the only way out of the hurry and chaos and stress of our everyday lives is to take a deep breath and appreciate it all. She's learning, through naming the infinite number of gifts God has given her, how to fully live. One of my favorite parts of the book, so far, illustrates that beauty and wonder can be found everywhere, anywhere. That God's miraculous power is not seen only in mountains and jungles and exotic, foreign places, but that it encompasses our lives.

Although Ann writes with a very poetic style that some people wouldn't enjoy, I love this book so far. I started reading a copy from the library but had to buy my own so I could highlight all the things that really speak to me. Emily, one of my counselors from a camp I went to this summer, Camp Crestridge, recommended this book to me. She'd read it and talked about how it inspired her to begin a running list of her blessings as well. I'll end this post with a fantastic excerpt, filled with imagery, from One Thousand Gifts.

"I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I've seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives. Why would the world need more anger, more outrage? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering. The converse does. The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world" (Voskamp 58).

Attached is a link to Ann Voskamp's website with information about herself and her book.

http://onethousandgifts.com/about