One Thousand Gifts

So, today I planned to finish up my thorough inventory and organization of my new classroom and finally put up posters...but I got a late start. Haven't gotten to the room yet and it's midway through the afternoon.
You know those nights when you are ready for bed, exhausted at like 7:00, but power through it so you can get a few more things done? Then suddenly you have a burst of energy and can't get to sleep till after 2 in the morning? Yeah...yesterday was one of those days. So sleeping in was good. :)

but also, while this is so immediately and intensely on my heart, I think it's more important.

The other day I finally got around to start reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts. A few friends were thrilling over it, and my house mom from the past semester actually used ideas from this book to decorate her house!
I've only just finished chapter two and my mind is already blown...and my soul feels so full!

I LOVE her writing style - a combination of poetic personal narratives/experiences and spiritual messages/revelations. Probably because it is much like the way I write and think. It's just so relatable! At the beginning of the summer I also read Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller, and that was good too, similar writing style, but there weren't as many things to sit and chew on if you know what I mean.

I mean...just hear this! -

“But from that Garden beginning, God has had a different purpose for us. His intent, since He bent low and breathed His life into the dust of our lungs, since He kissed us into being, has never been to slyly orchestrate our ruin....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). He means to rename us - to return us to our true names, our truest selves...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.”

(One Thousand Gifts pg. 17)

How beautiful is that!? Of course, my favorite part is "kissed us into being" ...but that's a blog post for later. :)

Her main message is to live a life of Thanksgiving. 
In one of the first chapters she breaks down the word "Thanksgiving"
...in Greek: "Eucharisteo"
which is made up of root word "Charis": Grace, 
and also its derivative"Chara": Joy.

Grace -> Thanksgiving -> Joy

Eucharisteo

Woah!

I put that on my fridge.

A lifestyle of seeing the gifts of grace

giving thanks

and receiving joy.

Isn't that the culmination of what I've been learning to do lately?!

After reading this yesterday...I had to stop and digest those words. So I got up and went to make some lunch. Got out a pot to boil water, pulled off the lid and there it was! That silly toothbrush holder that I thought was lost forever! After moving into the apartment and unpacking everything, I couldn't find it...and I don't really like laying my toothbrush on the counter.

But there it was...shortly after reading about learning to see God's gifts everywhere.

How silly is this gift?! A toothbrush holder?

But a gift all the same. :)

Thank you!

And I laughed heartily in delighted praise.

~ 

Then today hit and I read about how Jesus gave thanks before He broke bread for the last Supper. The night He would be betrayed. The eve of His pain and sacrifice. 

Um...what?

He thanked God for the broken bread? For His soon to be broken body? For His pain? Soon to be abandoned by His Father. I mean, I know He's the Son of God...but how can he thank God for THAT?!

Perhaps because he knew the Greater Gain that would come through Great Loss.

“At the Eucharist, Christ breaks His heart to heal ours” 

(One Thousand Gifts, 40)

I sat back in wonder and confusion.
How to thank God for the hard stuff. I know how to thank God for the future blessings He has in store. I know how to thank God, although difficult at the time, for how current pain will impact my future in a great way...for the things I often find that I learned through pain. However, what those things are usually aren't revealed to me until after-the-fact.

But in the midst of pain, is there a way to see God's gifts...tangible in the moment of hurt? That would be easier. That would give me joy in the middle of loss. 

Then a memory sprang to mind, and I know God placed it there. That time, the day before a new semester, a Sunday morning.

I laid on the bed in the Hospital ER, writhing in pain.

My guess was that I had appendicitis, but we waited for the pain killers to kick in so they could do some tests.

I panted, gasping for breath. My legs moving restlessly under the covers. Eyes clamped shut. Trying to numb the pain. The worst pain that I'd ever felt. Worse than the occasional bouts of cramps that grapefruit-sized ovarian cyst had given me before I'd had it removed a year ago.

Just 10 minutes ago I had felt okay, not good, but 10 times better than this.

I knew something was wrong, though, and I had laid in bed for rest rather than up getting ready for church. When I finally figured it might be more than sudden bladder infection...I called my best friend and former roommate Sara to see if she could run me to the Hospital, afraid that I'd experience more pain (which I did) on the drive there. I then called Terry, whose house I was going to live in for the semester, having just moved in the day before, and told her the situation. She and Steve had left for church not long ago but she would meet me at the hospital.

It's still incredible to me how quickly the pain got worse after those phone calls.

In the car, doubled over my bucket, my hair already wet from sweat, outside the hospital doors.

Terry had walked up and opened the door and I motioned for her to get a wheelchair, knowing walking would be torture.

 Now...laying in that bed...waiting for relief.

Sara and Terry dressed in their nice Sunday clothes.

Me in a hospital robe, teeth not yet brushed, and hair a sweaty mess.

Sara on my right.

Terry (who would become mom to me in a very short time) on my left.

Terry stroked my hair away from my forehead and gently encouraged me to breathe slowly.

I focused on how good it felt to have her run her fingers through my hair, trying to comb the tangles of ache away.

Then she prayed out loud for my healing.
Comfort.

And my eyes welled up.

Because I felt SO so loved.

With two people, each very dear to me, on either side.

Not at church where they had planned to be.

Watching me wrestle with pain, and a terrible sight I'm sure it was.

Praying me into the arms of love.

And I felt SO blessed.

It didn't take the pain away,

it still took a few minutes for the morphine to kick in,

but I'd never really experienced love like that before.

Because of my pain, I was able to experience that radical, extravagant love.

And I choked back tears as it washed over me.

And I gave thanks. 
Worshiped.

For the wonder of the Mystery.
Joy in the midst of struggle.

~

So may I live to ever see and be thankful for His graces, freely given to me, even in the midst of heartache.

As a friend of mine recently wrote: “Grace upon grace. NOT a waste. NOT an overarching mistake.”

~Merely Mortal

Grace, Thanksgiving, Joy!