Gift Counting

I started to count gifts in this beautiful, small journal about a year and a half ago, after reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.  I'd followed Ann's blog for a while, reading her gorgeously pieced words that eloquently reflect her innermost thoughts on life and faith.  I'd wanted to see life differently, and wanted to see if I, too, could be changed by giving thanks.  So I started listing and I can attest that things started changing.  In the process of giving thanks for what is, something happens.  There is a transformation that occurs when thanks is lifted up and given.  It is not always easy to do, this thanksgiving, but the results are worth it. 

The journey has been a tilling of the soil, of watering dry land, of breaking the whole into bits and pieces that gleam light through fragmentation.  As I look back at my list, the numbered thanks, I remember many good things.  This is an enjoyable practice, one that is worth keeping - there is no stopping once it has been started.

It is helpful to keep my journal here on the counter, in one of my spaces, easily accessible and visible.  Today I celebrate reaching #1,000 - serving the God who overlooks my sin and keeps my tears bottled - and going beyond as I continue counting. 

Here I recall insights shared by my son last year, in which he and I pondered on the miracle of Jesus' breaking the fishes and loaves into so many pieces,
and he sat there, my thoughtful son,wondering how this could have happened, insisting that "Something must have happened when Jesus broke the bread and the fish!? Maybe He was able to pull more out of the pieces He broke!?" -  and I've experienced this occurrence while performing Eucharisteo: breaking moments into words in which we express our thanks to God for all the goodness He's given.  One thing becomes more things, because He multiplies our moments into more than what they are on the surface. In one thing, there are more things. Everything, more than it appears to me. It is a fulfilling way to experience life, it is a new way to see.

As I experience this for myself, listing thankfulness - I live it,  I learn it, through experience.  I highly recommend the gift counting.  It is not always easy to do.  I do not always feel like it.  I go days and weeks listing nothing.  But I made it to the #1,000 and surpassed it and it is a landmark and it is worth celebrating, and I plan to continue counting.