Ann Voskamp

You Get Joy

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“When you take your life for granted?
You get jealous.
When you take your life as a gift–
you get joy” (Ann Voskamp, 1000 Gifts).

On the surface, that sounds easy, right? Who in their right minds wouldn’t choose joy over jealousy and peace over comparison?

But in a society that runs on envy and comparison like fuel, choosing to see your life as a gift to be cherished rather than something you’re owed that you can take for granted is like imitating one of those crazy fish that swim upstream every year. It’s nuts.

The hardest thing in the world sometimes is to celebrate with and for those who have what you don’t– what you desperately long for and pray for and still don’t have– relationships, solid finances, stable careers, etc. It’s easy to get competitive and develop an “us versus them” mentality that leads to a way of life where you have to outdo, outspend, out-everything your neighbor.

Joy comes when you stop competing and start cooperating, when you can genuinely be happy for the person who gets what you’ve waited for so long. Joy comes to those who see and choose to focus on what they already have instead of what they lack.

Joy is not our default. Joy isn’t automatic like breathing. Joy is something we must choose every single morning, and sometimes with each moment. Joy is good.

Right now, joy is a very sleepy geriatric cat on the pillow next to mine. Joy is satisfaction from a full eight hours of work (even if I wasn’t able to get everything done that I wanted to accomplish). Joy is any kind of Halloween candy with chocolate in it. Joy is a warm bed under a ceiling fan. Joy is knowing that real value lies in what can’t be bought or sold or even owned.

Once again, I choose joy because I choose to see this life as a gift.

 

 

 

Another Good Borrowed Prayer

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“Lord, when I don’t like me,
You still love me, You still like me, You still lavish me with acceptance.
When I am fed up with me, You invite me to Your feast,
When I am done — with me, with life, with everything,
You whisper, ‘Hang on — I am making *all things* — *you* — new.’ (Rev21:5)
And when I want to quit, You cup my face: ‘This great work I started in you? I won’t stop that beautiful work until you are fully, completely, gloriously beautiful’ (Phil1:6, 1 Cor2:7)
So this becomes our brave & broken-hearted hallelujah, the one we sing into the dark, even when it’s hard to believe:
I am His Beloved, His Beloved, His Beloved… and even now I will be held.

In the name of the only One who loved us to death & back to the real & forever life… Amen.” (Ann Voskamp).

This is a good prayer for the week that never seems to want to end. This is a doxology for the difficult days that seem to come in bunches and never in just one.

I still remember the line from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel that I quote to myself periodically: “Everything will be fine in the end, and if it’s not fine, it’s not yet the end.”

I remind myself that even the worst of days where nothing goes right still only lasts for 24 hours. It may feel longer, but the tell-tale ticking of the second hand on the clock tells a much different story.

I suppose this is another variation on my infamous “Don’t give up because God’s not done with you yet” rah-rah cheery blog posts. I don’t care. I’ll keep thinking of different ways to keep preaching the gospel to myself (and hopefully you as well) until it finally begins to sink in. And I think it’s working at last.

 

More Thanksgiving and Thanks-living

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“When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself” (Tecumseh).

Even on Mondays in October, there is always something to be thankful for. If I’m going to be a one-hit wonder, then my song will always be one of gratitude. I hope you never get tired of hearing just as I never get tired of telling how much joy there is in giving thanks.

Rejoice always. That’s God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. That means that gratitude isn’t just a preferred way of living. It’s prescribed.

Gratitude is the polar opposite of cynicism and sarcasm, two twin fuels that seemingly power social media these days.

I decided a long time ago that seeing the glass as half full was a much better way to live, a much saner way to survive the hard days and the dry days and the long days.

If I come across like a trumpet braying out a one-note symphony, it’s because I’ve seen the power of gratitude to transform not my circumstances but me in the midst of my circumstances.

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings” (William Arthur Ward).

“Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse” (Henry Van Dyke).

Give thanks. Try it. Just pick one thing, no matter how small or insignificant from your day, and be thankful to God for it.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend” (Melody Beattie).

Perspective

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“How my eyes see, perspective, is my key to enter into His gates. I can only do so with thanksgiving. If my inner eye has God seeping up through all things, then can’t I give thanks for anything? And if I can give thanks for the good things, the hard things, the absolute everything, I can enter the gates to glory. Living in His presence is fullness of joy- and seeing shows the way in” (Ann Voskamp).

That’s it.

It’s all about perspective.

It’s all about giving thanks and being grateful.

It’s all about living in the present, thankful for what you have instead of envious and bitter over what you don’t.

God is always present to those who know where (and how ) to look. Those with open hands of both receiving and releasing of surrender, not with clenched fists that grasp and clutch.

Gratitude is a choice that I must make every single day. Every day I get, I must choose to pursue joy and peace and patience and kindness and gentleness and self-control. For me, it’s not a “have to” as much as it is a “get to.”

Not that I always do. Some days, I let fear win. I let anxiety and envy win. It’s easy to do when you listen to all the other voices around you instead of the Still Small voice inside you. The voice of your Abba that sees past your scars and still calls you Beloved.

But each new day is a chance to choose again and make a new beginning.

So, make Monday count. Buck the trend that says that Mondays have to be horrible and bad because they’re Mondays. Even Mondays can be good if you choose gratitude and thanksgiving.

That’s what I’m choosing tomorrow. That’s what I hope I’ll choose every day after that.

 

 

September Song

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Hello-September-Graphic

“By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather,
And autumn’s best of cheer.

But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.

‘T is a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget”

(Helen Hunt Jackson).

September is here. That means that all my checks that I write this month– both of them– will have a 9 for the date instead of an 8.

September still means hot weather. We are talking about Tennessee weather where summer sticks around like the unwanted house guests from old movie Madhouse (starring John Larroquette and Kirstie Alley). Seriously, it won’t leave.

It also means that fall and everything pumpkin spice is just around the corner. Soon enough, the weather will turn crisp and the leaves will turn golden and autumn will make a quiet and solemn entrance.

September means a much-needed holiday weekend that 99% of the working world has been looking forward to since July. For real.

September means that we are closer to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas– the holy trinity of holidays for retailers.

It’s easy to get so caught up in wanting to jump forward to the next season that you forget to pay attention to the present. You can be so fixated on the future that you auto-pilot through the present.

I’m reading an excellent book called Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day. The goal is to live intentionally and mindfully through each day, so that you don’t miss what God is saying to you in the present moment.

To slow down and savor life is hard. It’s easy to want to rush through the day to get to the evening. It’s just as easy to blow through week to get to Friday. In that way, the days turn into weeks that turn into months that slip by unlived and unloved.

I’m looking forward to all the pumpkin spice, bonfires, s’mores, flannel, and crisp air that I can lay my hands on, but I’m also looking forward to tomorrow. I want it to become the best today possible.

 

 

2,200 and Counting

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“And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your marital status, defines your life” (1 Corinthians 7:17, The Message).

I recently received a notification of my six-year anniversary with WordPress. I’ve come a long way since that very first blog way back in July of 2010 that announced my arrival into the wild and exciting world of blogging (said with sarcasm).

I’m still not a fan of the word “blog.” It sounds like something you do that you don’t ever discuss in polite conversation, especially in mixed company. It also sounds like something you blow out of your nose when you have a cold.

In the ultimate irony, I’m slowing learning that to grow up and get to the place God created you to be, the best place to start is to learn to be content with where you are and who you are. The more you strive out of insecurity or envy, the more you find you’re vainly fighting the air while running in place. You don’t get very far that way.

The best way to find contentment is gratitude. Giving thanks makes what you have enough (as Ann Voskamp has said more than once) and it makes your life fuller and richer by putting your focus on what you have instead of what you lack.

Giving thanks opens your hands to receive more true riches from God’s hand. The problem with the prosperity gospel is that it focuses on the temporary riches that rust and fade, but the true riches that come with thanksgiving are the kind that are eternal and changeless.

I’m thankful tonight for a job that I enjoy, a cat who also moonlights as a very affordable therapist, a comfy bed, people who care about me, and a God who is crazy about me even after all these years.

I’d call that the good life.

 

All Is Still Grace

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That’s it. At the end of the day, all is still grace.

That breathing in and breathing out thing you’re still doing? Grace.

Being able to see and hear and touch and feel and smell and live? Grace.

That job that you go to every day and the car you drive in to get there? Grace.

The food in your belly and the pillow beneath your head at night? Grace.

Karma is you getting what’s coming to you. Grace is you getting what you never expected in a million years and never counted on because you knew you didn’t deserve it.

Waking up tomorrow to a new sunrise and new mercies? Grace.

 

Random Life Lesson

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If I could give you one random life lesson, it’d be this– celebrate the life you have and not the life you wish you had. Enjoy the season of life you’re in by living in it rather than merely marking time until the next season or pining over the last one.

If this isn’t where you want to be, make the most of the present by preparing yourself now for who you want to be when that life you really want does come around. If you’re single, that means you work on being the right person more than looking for the right person. As my pastor said more than once, when the time comes, you can’t start getting ready– you have to be ready.

Most of what really constitutes life happens while we’re busy making other plans. Or to rephrase it for more modern times, life is what happens when you’re looking down at your phone and texting about what you wish would happen. Oh, the delicious irony.

It’s not the grand cinematic moments that you remember most fondly. It’s a combination of several unobtrusive small moments that add up to great memories.

Don’t base your identity on what might happen and on the next phase– in other words, if you’re single, don’t define yourself in terms of a future spouse, or if you’re married, in terms of future children. Let God be the one who tells you who you are now and let that define how you live in the future, spouse or no spouse, children or no children.

As the old Robert Earl Keen song says, all you have is today. So much time and effort is wasted on worrying about what probably will never be. So much energy is depleted in obsessing over possible scenarios that never come to pass.

Just enjoy your present for the gift that it is.

 

Be Still

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“Be still, be calm, see, and understand I am the True God.
    I am honored among all the nations.
    I am honored over all the earth” (Psalm 46:10, The Voice).

That’s my advice for you this weekend. Be still.

I know you have that never-ending list of chores and tasks that never gets any smaller.

I know that you feel like you have to be on the go from sunup to sundown in order to feel productive.

I know that the kids have soccer practice and piano lessons and fifty other activities that they are involved in on a daily basis.

I also know that God was serious when He made the Sabbath as a day of rest. He meant it.

No one can sustain a 24/7 lifestyle. You just can’t.

Even if you could, when you’re constantly living at a frenetic pace, there’s no time to hear God speaking. There’s no time to listen to what He’s trying to tell you.

Slow down. Take a moment. Be still. You won’t regret it.

Cherish the moments and you will see God in them. Count the blessings right in front of you and you will tune your heart to sing God’s grace.

It takes time to tune out the world and tune in to God’s voice. It won’t happen in a microwave minute. You have to learn patience and persistence. You have to resist the tyranny of the urgent.

You can afford to leave some of your to-do list undone. You can’t afford not to hear from God. You can’t afford not to spend time with Him.

If you can tithe your money, you can learn to tithe your time and leave room for God in your schedule. After all, you still make time for what matters most.

I think that covers it for tonight.

 

Slow Down And Just Be

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“Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing…. Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away” (Ann Voskamp, 1000 Gifts).

Two words: slow down.

All around me all I see is impatience. On my commute to and from work, I see that the majority of people have an extreme lack of patience and an acute inability to wait. But good things come to those who wait, as I have tested and found true over the course of my life.

You can’t rush maturity. You can’t rush healing. You can’t rush growth. All the things that are worthwhile in this life take time. There is no microwave shortcut to becoming your best self.

I’m learning how to be still and listen. I’m still not very good at it. I can’t seem to quiet my mind long enough to hear anything outside my own head sometimes. But if you can be still and silent, maybe you will hear the whisper of God over you and find healing and salvation there.

Slow down and steep yourself in as many moments as possible. Put down the social media and actually be present in your own life. See what’s around you and look for God in all the places and people around you and you will find joy and blessing there.

God still says to you and me to be still and know that He is God. Cease striving. You will never find God in the hustle and bustle. It’s in the silence and solitude that God speaks to us.

Slow down.