One Thousand Gifts
Chapter 3

I'm really only on chapter three????  I feel as though a light has penetrated and that I may never be the same again and it's only chapter 3?

History... I am one of those people that when someone says, "you have to read this book, it will change your life".  I don't.  Call it being stubborn, or whatever but I just can't bring myself to read that something.  This book came to me by accident.  I was looking through a friends facebook page and she had mentioned a quote from the book, which lead me to look deeper, which lead me to ask my husband to order it for me, which has lead me to this point.

The challenge is out... one thousand things you are thankful for.  Eucharisteo. 

Philippians 4:11-12 " I have learned how to be content with whatever I have.  I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything.  I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.

The secret is to learn.

Page 50 " The habit of discontentment can only be driven out by hammering in one iron sharper.  The sleek pin of gratitude".

Page 57 " Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped.  God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: JOY.

Page 58 " Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering".

So what does all this mean for me... to live a life full of joy?  Realizing that God is in all things and that I must learn to be content in whatever season I am in.


So I start my list... One thousand gifts.
1. The clear half moon that greeted me when I opened the back door at work this morning.
2. The apple cinnamon oatmeal that I had prepared but forgot to put together last night, but that my husband saw before bed and finished it so that we would have warm, tasty oatmeal for breakfast this morning.

all His good works... working.