So, here’s my only New Year’s resolution, and I’m inviting you to be part of it.
I’m going to make a list of 2013 things I’m grateful for. That works out to 38.71153846153846 per week, so I thought I’d go for 39.
I blogged this a month or so ago, in a letter to my boys:
…
In this heavy month shot through with hope, I’m reading a book called One Thousand Gifts and it’s about how the secret to joy – which is kind of what everyone wants, really – lies hidden before our very eyes in what Jesus did the night he was betrayed. He took bread, gave thanks, broke it and shared it. The Greek for ‘gave thanks’ is eucharisteo. The root word is charis – grace – which is derived from chara – joy. He received the bread as God’s grace and there was joy in that. It’s all over Scripture. The thing that precedes the miracle is always eucharisteo. So living the miracle life – the life of joy – is rooted in thanksgiving. That’s why I blog here for you, my bears. I want you to live the good life – the full life – the deeply aware life of abiding wonder. I want you to learn eucharisteo. Here and now, even in bread. Find God’s glory in the mundane and the magnificent. Celebrate life.
And now I can hear the cynics. ‘You’re so naïve. So trite. Getting all excited about Christmas lights and foam on your cappuccino and calling it God’s glory and goodness. Whatever. Where the hell is God in the tragedies of this world and how can you be so bloody cheerful?’ I know that’s what some people think. Because sometimes it’s what I think – like tonight when the News is ugly with rhinos poached and Gaza bombed and Bangladeshi slums on fire and vigilante violence on the Cape Flats.
Ann Voskamp has the exquisite, eloquent answer I’ve been looking for:
I think how God-glory in [everyday things] might seem trifling. Even offensive, to focus the lens of a heart on the minute, in a world mangled and maimed and desperately empty.
I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I’ve seen the hungry and the guns go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in July and the song of crickets on humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives. Why would the world need more anger, more outrage? How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is the joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn’t rescue the suffering. The converse does. The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world. When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us? The clouds open when we mouth thanks. (page 58, One Thousand Gifts, 2012)
So anyway, I thought I’d write a gift list of 30 things – one for each day of November – because even in the unknowns and the challenges, I am deeply grateful. Soulfully joyful. Because to choose to be thankful – to name the gifts God gives – brings them into sharp focus and the sea of blessings is no longer a blur.
…
My plan is to blog my list of 39 things, once a week. 39 glimpses of God’s goodness and glory, his mercy and protection, his grace and favour. And just the little stuff that makes life the painfully exquisite, hilarious adventure that it is. Despite the tragedy and cruelty and injustice.
I really want to know what you’re saying thanks about. Please leave your lists in the comments. Facebook me. Tweet me. Email me (dalene.reyburn@gmail.com). Let’s start a eucharisteo conversation. Who knows? We might even change life as we know it on this beautiful, broken planet.
Happy New Year.
Good morning, I’m reading Ann Voskamp’s books too and began a gratitude journal this month. Blessings, Ellen
LikeLike
[…] out the 2013 challenge – giving thanks for 39 things every week this year. Here are my first 39. (So that’s 1974 to […]
LikeLike
[…] are my next 39 things. You don’t have to read my list. It’s just my worship to God – my fullness – my living. But […]
LikeLike
[…] The next 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] Here are this week’s 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] 1818 to go! This week I’m grateful for: […]
LikeLike
[…] are the 39 things I’m thanking God for this […]
LikeLike
[…] weeks down, only 45 to go! Here are my 39 things for this […]
LikeLike
[…] Still, here are my 39 things. […]
LikeLike
[…] If you’re wondering what all this about, check out the challenge. […]
LikeLike
[…] I’m praying that this Scripture resonates with you. And that you decide to make your own weather today, by giving thanks. Here are this week’s 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] been winning the eucharisteo battle for 10 weeks now – taking territory in my worship of noticing the small graces and the […]
LikeLike
[…] out the challenge. Here are 39 things I’m saying thank you for this week. And I’ll be praying that God would […]
LikeLike
[…] one week in the year when every Christ-follower should look up from the sludge of life and bask in eucharisteo, it’s this one. As you celebrate how the suffering of Jesus set you free, open your heart-eyes to […]
LikeLike
[…] are this week’s 39 things, from my soul – quietened into happy stillness and wholeness – to […]
LikeLike
[…] This week, 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] A gratitude haiku to kick off this week’s 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] into a happy Monday. Thank you for the mails and comments and facebook inboxes lately sharing your 39 things. Trade winds in my eucharisteo sails, I tell you. So humbled and honoured to journey with […]
LikeLike
[…] On various levels of life’s layered depths it’s been a good-news-bad-news week. But thanksgiving is a way through – a way to live fully – fully alive to God’s glory. Whether his ways are clear, or beyond tracing out. This week’s 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] are 39 things that came into focus for me this week. (I’ve used the first 13 challenges of Ann […]
LikeLike
[…] are my 39 things for the week – based on the next 13 challenges of Ann Voskamp’s May Joy […]
LikeLike
[…] they are – my 39 things at the start of a wintery-crisp week in the southern hemisphere. As our days here get shorter, […]
LikeLike
[…] week my 39 things are quite personal – as in, I mention persons, more than usual. I guess I’ve been really aware […]
LikeLike
[…] halfway. After these 39 things, only 1 116 things-of-thanks to go. Anyone still with […]
LikeLike
[…] dare you to ask God to open your eyes this week to 39 things that shout about goodness. Go on. See if he […]
LikeLike
[…] This week’s 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] I’m halfway to counting 2013 things for the year that answers to that name. Here are this week’s 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] Here are this week’s 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] ahead of time for Monday 8:00am GMT+2. Except for today. I have about 39 minutes to give thanks for 39 things so here […]
LikeLike
[…] – there’s no such thing as big faith – faith is faith. We need simple faith in a big God.’ This year’s thanksgiving journey has kind of been about living that simple faith – letting all of life fall on a mirror to reflect […]
LikeLike
[…] are my 39 things of thanks, for the week that’s […]
LikeLike
[…] And lying in bed on Friday night in the cold starlit hush of the KwaZulu-Natal midlands I scrawled out on my phone in bad predictive text all the things-of-thanks that swamped my mind like so much grace washing over the week that hadn’t been arid after all. I saw how God had met me in every weakness to break the bread and share the cup and there was always enough and always there was the miracle of eucharisteo. […]
LikeLike
[…] Here are this week’s 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] Here are this week’s 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] week’s 39 things are 39 of the many-many-many passages of Scripture for which I am so […]
LikeLike
[…] week’s 39 things (actually 41 again – might even get to 2013 gifts before […]
LikeLike
[…] For sure, big rocks of gratitude are anchoring my year. This week’s 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] This week’s 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] Today with Kenya and the world’s hearts burning I want to quote Ann Voskamp like I did when I started this challenge: […]
LikeLike
[…] This week’s 39 things: […]
LikeLike
[…] And then, another 42 gifts I’ve been counting: […]
LikeLike
[…] another 39 things for which I’m saying […]
LikeLike
[…] 39 things for the […]
LikeLike
[…] 39 things for the […]
LikeLike
[…] 39 things for the […]
LikeLike
[…] it’s a bumper list this week – which leaves just 124 gifts to […]
LikeLike
[…] a bunch of other things of thanks for the week that’s […]
LikeLike
[…] been part of my motivation to make 2013 a year of thanksgiving, so I’m determined to carry on counting the gifts for just a couple weeks […]
LikeLike
[…] done. 2013 gifts counted. 2013 helpings of God’s goodness dished up lavish and dripping Christmas […]
LikeLike