Thankful today...for beauty

Numbering some gifts
on a beautiful almost-spring day...
• Hiking along an ancient creek
(with dearly loved ones)

• Cooking with Jesse and Jessica...

• Close friends crowded around a table
filled with good things...
• Words that bring conviction...
• Enough...
• And in my backyard...a pear tree,
blooming white...a promise of spring...

• And bright bits of yellow...

• And lush, soft green...

• A bright new rug, welcoming at the back door...

• Cut flowering branches,
bringing spring indoors...

...wishing you a grace-filled almost-spring day...

Counting gifts on the farm...

It's almost-spring and in addition to getting ready to plant hundreds of acres of corn and cotton, we're experimenting with a little garden spot. On this gorgeous almost-spring day, I counted gifts...

119. The good, dark earth.

120. Jesse...every day...

121. The promise of fresh veggies...


121. A beautiful tree...budding...

122. Gorgeous blue skies...

123. Unexpected beauty...in the weeds...

Yes, these are weeds. Hen bit to be precise. A very bad weed when it's encroaching on your crops, but, when you take a closer look...

...it's really beautiful. Finding beauty in the weeds...like looking for the gift in the not-so-beautiful times of life...


(Oh, and one more for fun!)


124. A soft, gray, sleeping farm cat...

Counting gifts...

Still working on counting gifts...receiving all as grace. (See this post for more explanation!) On Mondays, I'm joining a group of others in sharing some of the gifts I'm thankful for in this season. I'd love to know what you're counting today!

104. Young mothers.
105. Baby slobber.
106.Cool, smooth sheets.
107.Wisdom for the moment.
108. Truck naps.
109. Velvety soft cat paws.
110. Breezy days, open windows.
111. Church potluck.
112. Sweet goodbyes...

"Gratitude is the most fruitful way of deepening your consciousness that you are...a divine choice..." Henri Nouwen

"Count blessings and discover Who can be counted on..." Ann Voskamp

*Confession - I feel compelled to confess that I'm struggling somewhat in this discipline of practicing eucharisteo - naming gifts, giving thanks, receiving grace and joy. I have a tendency to rack up a spiritual "to do" list, as though checking boxes off a list will please God. (Crazy, right? Is this a firstborn thing or a Type A personality thing? I do not know!) Anyway, I don't know who is reading this or why I felt the need for a little "full disclosure," but I don't want to give the false impression that I have a "handle" on anything...I'm just struggling...looking for grace in the moments...trying to be fully present, truly thankful, resting in God's wildly unreasonable love for me...

One thousand gifts...

I've been putting off this post...intimidated somehow. I've read a book that is so poetic and so life-changing that writing about it makes me feel completely inadequate.

The book is One Thousand Gifts - A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp and it has taken my breath away. In a nutshell, Ann, a Canadian farm wife, accepted a dare to record 1000 things she loves - 1000 gifts from God. The process became a hunt for the beautiful in the every day - and a deepening awareness of God's love expressed in the microscopic and the magnificent.

The heart of the book lies in discovering and understanding eucharisteo - a word used to describe Jesus' giving of thanks hours before his death. "He gave thanks" - eucharisteo. The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning grace. As Ann writes, "Jesus took the bread, and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it to be gift and gave thanks."

Ann continues, "Eucharisteo - thanksgiving, includes the Greek word for grace, charis, but also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning joy...is it that simple? Is the height of my chara joy dependent on the depths of my eucharisteo thanks?"

The entwined threads of grace, thanksgiving and joy form the refrain of the book - a deep searching for deepest communion with God by simply receiving all as gift - the beautiful and, sometimes, the ugly-beautiful, because...well, life is hard.

So, I accepted the dare, took up pen and began my own hunt for the gifts - not always profound or poetic or spiritual - but gifts -- all gift, all grace. It's a discipline, this search for grace, this giving of thanks. Ann quotes Erasmus (as I...um...often do...) "A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit." The habit of ingratitude - or just inattention -- must be driven out by a habit of eucharisteo.

I love her repeated refrain, backed up with Scripture after Scripture - "Eucharisteo precedes the mirace." So, in the middle of a mess, in the middle of chaos or tragedy, can I look for the gift? Can I accept all as grace and expect the miracle? The miracle of joy...of love? Recounting the gifts is receiving God's love and returning it in thanks and praise - the joy results because this is what we were created for.

Far too often, I have (as Ann says) "slapped a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life, which left me deeply thankful for very few things." In the naming, the counting, we experience the joy.

"Do not disdain the small. The whole of life - even the hard - is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole," Ann writes.

Okay, I could quote the whole book, but I won't...I encourage you to read it. These are just glimpses of the first three of eleven startling chapters. I leave you with one more passage, then a few of the gifts I'm thankful for...

"And this, this is the only way to slow time: When I fully enter time's swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here. I can slow the torrent by being all here. I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment...Giving thanks for one thousand things is ultimately an invitation to slow time down with the weight of full attention...it's not the gifts that fulfill, but the holiness of the space. The God in it...thanks makes now a sanctuary."

My list (now at 87) includes...

warm bread, fresh from the oven (and real butter!)

...coffee, prepared by Jesse...

...flannel pajamas...and a freshly-made bed...

...family...and family photos, sweet company in an empty nest...

...a favorable wind...texts from my kids...rain-soaked fields...stars in a clear, black sky...empty laundry baskets...a fragment of time to read in the truck...rain on tin roof...leftovers...

My Scripture memory for the first two weeks in February reflects this season of learning:

"Pray diligently.
Stay alert with eyes wide open in gratitude."
Col. 4:2

For the rest of February, I'm also focusing on thanks:

"At all times and for everything,
giving thanks
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
to God the Father." Eph. 5:20

I find myself literally adopting a posture of hands lifted, open, as I look with new eyes for the gifts all around me. I'm accepting the dare to live fully, right where I am.

Pure grace...

I love Philosophy skincare products. (This is hardly a paid endorsement - Philosophy does not know who I am!) I have sensitive skin and have tried dozens of different products. The Philosophy products suit me. Plus, the packaging and promotion is clever...for example:

This is the cleanser - Purity (made simple).
Lather, rinse - purity. Ah.
And how about this little jewel?


Hope...in a jar?
Yes, please. I'll take some.
Then there's this...


When hope is not enough...This cracks me up...we women of a certain age can relate to this when it comes to a skincare regime! Then it may be time to turn to this:


Ah...a miracle! That should do the trick!
But my favorite Philosophy product by far is not a cream or lotion, but a lovely light scent:


Pure grace...in a bottle! It has a clean, pure, soap-and-water scent that I love. And while none of the skincare products has resulted in anything that can be remotely described as a "miracle," I find spritzing on a little "pure grace" can remind me of a miracle - the miracle of grace. It has not been spritzed, but lavishly poured and I want that scent to emanate from my life...to fill the air around me. I brought that bottle to my Sunday School class and spritzed it around while we talked about one of my favorite verses, 2 Cor. 2:14:

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphant procession in Christ Jesus, and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him."

I reminded the girls, like I try to remind myself, we should walk around smelling like Jesus - like grace...pure grace. It should season our speech:

"Let your conversation be always full of grace,
seasoned with salt,
so that you may know how to answer everyone." Col. 4:6

It should keep us humble:

"For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith—
and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God..." Eph. 2:8

It is enough:

"He said to me,
"My grace is sufficient for you..." 2 Cor. 12:9

And as a friend sang last night,

"Grace keeps giving me things I don't deserve;
mercy keeps withholding things I do..."
(Thanks, Wayne Watson!)

We've been given so much...grace has been lavishly poured out upon our lives. Can I extend it, lavishly, generously, to others?
I want to. I want to smell like grace.
Pure grace.

New beginnings...

Well, I took a little bloggy break...and I'm not sure I'm ready to end it. This ol' blog doesn't really know what it wants to be when/if it grows up... (hmmm...kind of like its owner?). Anyway, until I figure out what I'm supposed to do with this space I thought it would be worthwhile to continue to record my Scripture memory journey.

Beth Moore is once again hosting a "Siesta Scripture Memory Team," where some 8,000 women so far have committed to learning two scriptures each month. Amazing, right? To learn more about the team, you can visit Beth's blog here, and see what other sisters (also known as "siestas" on Beth's blog) are learning here and here. I'm not great at it, by any means, but taking a deliberate approach to Scripture memory has been life-altering - seriously. I highly recommend you join in, and, if you are, I'd love to know what you're memorizing and why (former reporter - I'm nosy that way!).

My first scripture for 2011 is almost embarrassing - because it was needed. I hate to admit that I need a holy reminder to put others first but, sadly, it's true. I memorized Philippians 2:3-4 in the ESV translation to try to start the year off right:

"Do nothing from rivalry or conceit
but, in humility,
count others more significant than yourselves.
Let each of you look not only to his own interests,
but also to the interests of others."

Lord, please let my mind and heart be transformed!

For the remainder of January, I'm working on a verse that struck me because I feel a little uncertain about some aspects of my life. (I am crazy about my life, don't get me wrong. I've got it good and I know it!) But things are changing and I want to navigate this season with some grace. I want to be "at the center of God's love - arms open and outstretched, ready..." as one of last year's verses stated. So, for whatever reason, Psalm 143:8 struck me:

"Let the morning bring me word
of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul."

I also really, really love the Amplified Bible translation of this verse:

"Cause me to hear
Your loving-kindness in the morning,
for on You do I lean and in You do I trust.
Cause me to know
the way wherein I should walk,
for I lift up my inner self to You."

Cause me to know - as I lift my inner self to You.

Arms open and outstretched...

I'm having kind of a bumpy fall, so far. I feel a little off-balance for some reason...nostalgic, fragile, emotional. Some of that is probably the inevitable let-down after the crazy rush and push of a harvest season. Some of it may be due to the intense season of study in which I've immersed myself -- the highs and lows that come with some authentic spiritual revelation. This is also "back-to-school" time, which means something completely different when your "children" are now "adults." My baby turned 20 last week. My baby! How did this happen?

So I'm trying to find balance. My natural inclination is to straighten up, shake it off, slap a smile on my face and soldier on. (Any other firstborns out there?) But lately, I've been giving myself permission to experience whatever season I find myself in. Not that I plan to wallow in melancholy, but I'm not going to deny it either. When irrepressible joy bubbles up (as it always does) I'm not going to squelch it - I'm going to revel in it. I don't want to miss the lessons of each season.

I read a passage in The Message translation the other day that tied together a lot of things I've experienced in recent weeks so I've chosen to memorize it - Jude 1:20-21a.

"But you, dear friends,
carefully build yourselves up
in this most holy faith
by praying in the Holy Spirit,
staying right at the center of God's love,
keeping your arms open and outstretched,
ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ."

Carefully build yourself up in the faith - by praying, staying in the center of God's love. I love the picture of "arms open and outstretched" -- ready to receive mercy, but also to dispense it.

I pray for God's blessing and mercy on you -- as you fully experience this season of life.