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One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp is based on a challenge she received to write down one thousand blessings from God… "She dares me, and I don’t even blink. Could I write a list of a thousand things I love? I read her line again…to name one thousand blessings – one thousand gifts – is that what she means? Sure, whatever…. 1. Morning shadows across the old floors. What begins as a half-hearted attempt to prove her own thankfulness becomes a way of life for Ann, a way of life we are enticed to share. As she observes and records the love of God being poured out all around her, we too are inspired to open our eyes and see the world in a new way… After reaching her thousandth gift in chapter five she has a revelation… the pursuit! The bloom had trumpeted for weeks. Was it all over now? …Or was this now only the beginning of really becoming? …But awakening joy awakens to pain. At the time when Ann initially received the challenge, she was sinking beneath a burden of unprocessed trauma and unsatisfied desire. The journey of being intentionally thankful was bringing to the surface the stifled pain of her past, turning it and churning it into something unexpectedly beautiful. With each new blessing recorded we watch her move from “forgotten and forsaken” to “beloved and blood-bought”—a journey each one of us deeply longs to take. I struggle to know for sure why this book is so powerful. Is it the unique way that she writes? Her poetic style was actually a barrier for me at first. Is it the way she is painfully transparent on every page? There are times when she will seriously make you cringe. Is it her deep insight into the ways motherhood (and life) draw us away from our intimacy with Christ? Is it her unswerving love for His Word or the awesome men and women she quotes? I think all of the above, and yet more. This book is about Ann and her personal struggle to abide with Christ, but it is also a book about me (and you). It’s unlike any other book I’ve ever read—organic and tangible, inviting me into every page— inspiring me to walk alongside her and move, really move, to a different place in my love relationship with Christ. It is as if she is telling her story, but simultaneously asking me to tell mine – to live mine as she lives hers. This is what grabbed me from the very beginning – the experience of the book, even more than the overall content. Here is one poignant example when Ann has had a personal failure, and I can hear my own voice in her words. |
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