A Mom Finds Joy in What Really Matters

The Dare: 1,000 Gifts?

Mother of six and best-selling author Ann Voskamp in her new book Selections from One Thousand Gifts: Finding Joy in What Really Matters tells how she tackled a challenge. She sought to name 1,000 blessings – one thousand gifts, that is – not gifts that she hopes to receive. These are gifts she already has received from the Almighty.

Identifying 1,000 gifts was a dare, she says – a love dare of sorts. She accepted it one clear November morning -- the beginning of list-making season: Lists of holiday menus, handmade projects and “have-to” buys. The lists, she writes were “scattered and stacked across the counter, around my desk,” when a friend’s message blinks up on her screen. “She dares me and I don’t blink,” she recalls. “Could I write a list of a thousand things I love? I read her line again. To name one thousand blessings – one thousand gifts – is that what she means?”

Practicing Thankfulness

Some days I coax hard. I am tired. I try writing down thanksgiving because I have known it before, that joy-miracle that might happen even now and here. I do feel happy when I name. But I wonder, even just an inkling — is this but a ridiculous experiment? Some days, ones with laundry and kids and dishes in sink, it is hard to think that the insulting ordinariness of this truly teaches the full mystery of all the important, the giving of thanks. It’s so frustratingly common. I pick up the journal. Learning requires practice — sometimes even mind-numbing practice. This is why I never really learned the language of “thanks in all things”! I had never practiced.

Everyday Glories

“You will want to see this,” says my husband. He takes my shoulders in his farming hands, large and field worn, and draws me close. “Right now?” I say. Still have to serve dinner, wash the dishes, sweep the floors, wash up the kids, turn down the beds, kneel for prayer. He leads me to the windowsill. I am moonstruck. I turn to find his eyes to find words. She is a harvest moon aching, swaying over the golden fields, womb swelling round with glory. His whisper brushes the curl of my ear, “When I saw it, I knew you’d want to see it too.” He grins, and I breathe relief. I take flight. I feel four again. I am gone, out the back door, across the back lawn, apron still on.