this book.

I've been wanting to blog about this book I just read and am now re-reading for a long time but it's one of those things in life that is so big, so beautiful, so profound, so transformational that words just won't even begin to capture how God is using it to change my heart. He's using it to love me.

The book, One Thousand Gifts is written by a woman named Ann who is a farmer's wife, home-schooling mom to 6 children, and a lover of Jesus who is honest about the brokenness and loss that comes with living life and following Jesus. She is also a poet and her words paint pictures and capture beauty and mess in a way that very few do. The book is her story of thankfulness. A friend dared her to make a list of 1,000 gifts, 1,000 things she's thankful for and she had no idea how God would use the things on that list to convince her of His love.

so, I'm gonna start with a quote and I'm sure there will be many more thoughts to come--

"I, too, had read it often, the oft-quoted verse: 'And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph 5:20). And I, too, would nod and say straight-faced, "I'm thankful for everything." But in this counting gifts, to one thousand, more, I discover that slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life. A lifetime of sermons on "thanks in all things" and the shelves sagging with books on these things and I testify: life-changing gratitude does not fasten to a life unless nailed through with one very specific nail at a time." p. 40

yeah, just go ahead and buy the book. it's worth it.