“I love those who love me, and those who seek
me diligently find me.” Proverbs 8:17
“It was a dare, like a
love dare of sorts,…a friend’s dashed-off digital line blinks on my screen. She
dares me, and I don’t even blink. Could I write a list of a thousand things I
love?...To name one thousand blessings—one thousand gifts—…I begin the list.
Not of gifts I want but of gifts I already have.
1.
Morning
shadows across the old floors
2.
Jam piled
high on toast
3.
Cry of
blue jay from high in the spruce
That is the beginning
and I smile. I can’t believe how I smile. I mean, they are just common things
and maybe I don’t even know they are gifts really until I write them down and
that is really what they look like. Gifts He bestows. This writing it down—it
is sort of like…unwrapping love.
16.
Leafy life scent of the florist shop
17.
The creak of her old knees
18.
Wind flying cold wild in hair
…Writing
the list, it makes me feel…happy. All day. I can hardly believe how it does
that,…And I add one more to the list. To feel it all again.
…Well,
if all these were gifts that God gives---then wasn’t my writing down the list
like…receiving. Like taking with thanks.”
Ann Voscamp, “One Thousand Gifts”, 2009
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