One Thousand Gifts

Do you know Ann Voskamp?  Surely you do, because it seems everyone does. 

I have been reading her blog for a while now (and finding myself in awe that she can wake up everyday and the words flow out of her the way that they do.), and I am encouraged by her intentional parenting and wifing and homemaking and educating and the list goes on and on.  She is all about finding the sacred in the everyday. 

Well, I recently ordered her book, One Thousand Gifts, and I have been encouraged to join her in looking for the good, the sacred, the gifts of God in the midst of the daily, and even in the midst of the suffering and the tragic.  Even there she thanks him. 

And so begins my list of 1000 (and beyond?)

1.  friends who know me well enough that even when it's been months, we start right where we left off
2.  the squeal of my children when I come in the door after a night away
3.  John's fat cheek up against mine
4.  A husband who encourages me to go, even when he has been very sick only days before
5.  In-laws who come to help out, giving me even greater peace of mind about being away
6.  A mom who can come in and figure out an organizational system that, shockingly, works.  (after praying that the Lord would help me get out from under the chaos)
7.  Health Insurance
8.  the smell of my new dryer sheets
9.  the sound of a neighbor's weed eater on this Spring evening and the smell of freshly cut grass
10.  Sonic diet coke for .99
11.  the library and the endless amount of books it supplies
12.  my Rainbow vacuum cleaner
13.  pajama pants and a t-shirt at the close of the day
14.  a full night's sleep on Saturday night
15.  the community I have found in this town I had never even heard of only a few years ago

The Lord is, indeed, good.  Always.