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Fiction. Christian Nonfiction. Poetry. Self-Improvement. HTML: More than 1.5 million copies sold! What if you discovered that the life you already have is the life you've always wanted? What if joy is possible right where you are? New York Times bestselling author Ann Voskamp invites you to embrace everyday blessings and embark on the transformative journey of chronicling God's gifts. How can you find joy in the midst of deadlines, debt, drama, and even the death of loved ones? What does the Christ-life really look like when your days are gritty, long, and sometimes even dark? How is God even here? "It is in the dark that God is passing by . . . our lives shake not because God has abandoned but the exact opposite. God is passing by. God is in the tremors. Dark is the holiest ground, the glory passing by. In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging His perfect and right will. Though it is black and we can't see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us..." In One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp invites you to discover a way of seeing that opens your eyes to ordinary amazing grace, a way of living that is fully alive, and a way of becoming present to God that brings deep and lasting joy. It's only in the expression of gratitude for the life we already have, we discover the life we've always wanted . . . a life we can take, give thanks for, and break for others. Come to feel and know the impossible right down in your bones: you are wildly loved by God. As Ann invites you into her own beautiful, heart-aching moments of amazing grace, she gently teaches you how to: Biblically lament loss and turn pain into poetry Intentionally embrace a lifestyle of radical gratitude Slow down and catch God in the moment Not a book merely to read, One Thousand Gifts is an invitation to engage with truths that will serve up the depths of God's joy and transform your life forever. Leave pride, fear, and control behind, and abandon yourself to the God who overflows your cup..… (more)
User reviews
"Can there be a good God? A God who graces with good gifts when a crib lies empty through long nights, and bugs burrow through coffins? Where is God, really? How can He be good when babies die, and marriages implode, and dreams blow away, dust in the wind? ...Where hides this joy of the Lord, this God who fills the earth with good things, and how do I fully live when life is full of hurt?" (pg. 12)
It isn't until a friend dares Ann to list one thousand gifts that things begin to really change in her life. She begins to list not the things she wants, but the gifts she has already been given. It begins to help her see the grace of God in her life in the little everyday things from jam on toast to nature outside and more. She learns what it means to be thankful and it changes her life.
"When the laundry is for the dozen arms of children or the dozen legs, it's true, I think I'm due some appreciation. So comes a storm of trouble and lightning strikes joy. But when Christ is at the center, when dishes, laundry, work is my song of thanks to Him, joy rains." (pg. 194) I love this. It's exactly what I face every day. And like Ann says in the book, it's a daily choice of gratitude and with that choice, my whole outlook on life changes b/c life is not about me but about Christ.
This is one of those books that you must read. So go to your local bookstore or check it out from the library and enjoy a book that will change your perspective on life.
Now as a homeschool mom of 6 and wife to a
It starts with a challenge from a friend to write a list of 1000 blessings or gifts that God gives. As she starts the list she begins to see growth in her life in thanksgiving and joy. She shares this growing experience with the readers as she quotes key scriptures, sermon notes, and personal reflections.
Ann's writing styloe is lyrical, poetic, and honest. Written in a way that you feel you are sitting with her in the living room with a cup of tea. It pierces through you and moves you emotionally.
Such a simple act "eucharisteo" but so many times choose to ignore it.
I loved how Ann shared with us some of her listed items as examples of what we could put into our own lists.
This was one of the best books I have read in a long time and it is already impacting my life with positive change as I strive to live more fully in Him.
5 plus stars!
I received a copy of this book from Zondervan for free, this has in no way influenced my review.
It starts off well. The author begins the book by writing about her family life and giving background to the reasons behind her negative feelings towards God. She reveals a heartbreaking tragedy that led to a life full of anxiety and fear. I found that in the parts of the book where the author was revealing subjects close to her heart and events from her past, she was able to write those without pretension and without resorting to use of flowery language. Those parts of the book are good and really held my interest, and sometimes moved me. However, most of the book is full of poetic language to the extent that it reads more like poetry than prose. There is also an inordinate amount of repetition of the same thing over and over again. It took me a long time to read this book because sometimes I could not bear to read another word. If I hadn’t been reading it to review it for Bookpleasures, I would have stopped reading about half way through.
All that said, I think it is a great shame that the book wasn’t thoroughly edited. Half of the words should definitely have been cut out. The flowery poetry should have been binned, in my opinion. It was as if the author was either trying too hard to find imagery to describe things, or was hiding behind this purple prose. She obviously has a great talent, because the bits of the book that I liked, I really liked.
She brought up many important issues in this book, but the way it was written makes it almost unreadable, unfortunately. It is a pity because, if this book was re-edited and restructured, it would be a perfect way to get across to people the importance of trusting and being grateful for the many gifts we take for granted in life on a daily basis.
Reviewed by Maria Savva as a reviewer for Bookpleasures.
I challenge you to let your life be invaded by a new vision that will bring you closer to God.
"...grace-bathed reflections on her farming, parenting, and writing life, you will embark on a transformative spiritual discipline of chronicling gifts. Along the way, you
I love the way this lady writes. If you are an outdoors lover, it will appeal to you as well.
I want to gift this book to so many of my friends, especially those struggling with some really difficult life issues, such as depression. I know that the poetic language might turn a lot of readers off, but as someone who usually likes her writing much more solid and fact-driving, I can honestly say that I was able to immerse myself in her language and get to the true point of what she was trying to convey. I am so thankful for this book — I really hope you’ll give it a chance and pick it up.
beckons you to leave the parched ground of pride, fear, and white-knuckle control and abandon yourself to the God who overflows your cup.
It invites you to wake up to God's everyday blessings,
and discover, as Ann did,
that in giving thanks for the life you already have,
you find the
Here's a book needing a slow swirl to savour both fragrance and flavour... take that sip, close your eyes to capture nuances and absorb depths of richness uncommon to the spiritual palate...
a welcome addition to this reader's library ~
The concepts of this book are wonderful and beg to be applied by the reader. It is written in a very poetic style and must be read slowly and (I found) in small pieces. I listened to the audio version which Ann narrates herself. She has a wonderful speaking voice and the words are like spoken song. One must pay careful attention and listen well to capture all of them. Great for individual or group study, for those interested in living a life of faith and grace to the fullest, while still feeling deeply and confronting the dark places of life.
However, many of her thoughts, practices and the quotations from ancient mystics were very helpful to me, even if the theological leaps she took to get to them seemed to me to be exactly that - leaps. I have started my own list of one thousand gifts and the concept that "all is grace" will stick with me. She talks about difficult, important questions and this book made me think.
This book is popular among women, including my wife, and reading it reminded me both of Foster and Beebe's Longing for God (my review) and The Shack (my review).Why The Shack? Because the underlying theme of both books is that God is sovereign and good. They both begin with tragedies that lead the authors to ask "How could a good, loving God let this happen?" which leads to the discoveries that we are free to give thanks in the midst of tragedy and pain because "nothing happens to you apart from God's will." When we accept God's gifts with bitterness and self-pity, we're implicitly saying that Satan's way would be better--it's blasphemy. Voskamp rightly states that distrust and worry are atheism. Jesus commanded us not to worry, and most of our anxiety comes from our lack of trust in God. Unlike The Shack, however, Voskamp openly quotes Scripture to explain her points and tell stories to her children.
Israel was covenanted to regularly observe days of thanks for what God had done for them, just as Jesus commanded us to observe the eucharist "in remembrance of Me." Remembrance should bring joy. But what about the dark memories of death, abuse, pain? Those events, too, were part of God's purpose. Voskamp writes that distance and time makes us appreciate them more for the gifts they were-- though we may never understand fully. Gratitude, she writes, is the foremost characteristic of a disciple. Jesus gave thanks for the very thing that would break and crush him. We give thanks for being able to die, for dying with Christ daily.
I appreciated her observation that we all read Ephesians 5:20, have heard sermons, and have books on our shelves reminding us to "give thanks for everything," but the more we broad-brush say "I'm thankful for everything," the less we're truly thankful for. She accepts a dare to record 1,000 things she's thankful for, developing a discipline of thankfulness. When we count our blessings we find out Who can be counted on. These range from boiled eggs to sorted clothes to the smell of the woods-- everyday things she experiences as a housewife on a farm. At this point, she discovers work as worship, finding that she can worship God by serving others as a housewife-- washing potatoes can be an act of worship. She quotes Dorothy Sayers (doesn't everyone?) on these points but I would have loved to see some Tozer and others in there as well.
Voskamp has gotten some criticism from people like Tim Challies (I will probably write another post critical of his review for several reasons.) for quoting Dallas Willard, Teresa of Avila, and other "mystics." Challies neglects to mention that she also quotes John Piper, J.I. Packer, Tim Keller, John Calvin, and other Reformed non-mystics heavily. The book gives little information of her education, but she's clearly well-read. Voskamp's words are similar to poems written by John Piper, her quest for the joy parallel's his quest for joy as explained in Desiring God. For Voskamp, the key to joy and "paradise" is in a life of gratefulness and thanksgiving.
When reading this book, I'm reminded that women think differently than men. A man would turn this book into a how-to manual with bullet points summarizing the scripture references. She writes from her own experiences, putting all her emotions out on paper. Women probably trust personal experiences and testimony more and professional credentials less (are there studies backing me up?). I listened to her read the book, so I experienced her tears and her laughter in a personal way.
With all the positive above, there are a few caveats about the book. My biggest issue came at the conclusion where there is a weird scene where she's visiting Notre Dame cathedral in Paris and experiencing a "union" with and "caresses" by God that are a bit disturbing. "God makes love with grace upon grace, every moment a making of His love for us. [C]ouldn’t I make love to God, making every moment love for Him? To know Him the way Adam knew Eve. Spirit skin to spirit skin?” She has a sort of ecstasy here that I find disturbing and off-putting, and it is definitely not akin to how the Apostles wrote about their experience of Jesus in the New Testament.
While the sovereignty and goodness of God are clear, the holiness of God is not so clear. Neither are the entirety of the death, burial, and resurrection. A Christian reading this book can find great encouragement, but a non-Christian reading this book might admire her ability to find joy in her tragedy and trust God to give her all good things, but still be confused as to how that's possible-- through Christ's atonement for our sins, and his physical resurrection. The book is not a complete autobiography, but it is very inward-focused. It is almost entirely about "me." My feelings, my daily life, my children, etc. That got to be a little too much for me.
In all, I give it 3.5 stars out of 5. I enjoyed it, and was encouraged to live with more gratitude and remember to "consider it all joy."
I
I have been reading One Thousand Gifts s-l-o-w-l-y. It is that kind of book. I love the ideas Voskamp writes about. To find joy in little things, even hard things... trials, inconveniences.. yes, there are blessings in everything. I took the book out of the library at first, but then realized I wanted to underline and highlight a lot, so I bought the book and am now still highlighting and underlining thoughts.. A lot of goodreads reviewers criticized Voskamp's writing style. And when I saw these criticisms it hindered me a bit, made me wonder if I want to bother w/reading it. I'm glad I did, but I do agree w/the criticisms. Voskamp's writing style, at least in this book, is over the top poetic, and frankly it gets irritating. And what's worse, from this grammar nerd's perspective, her inconsistencies bug the heck out of me.. for ex... her misuse of adjectives for adverbs... "I touched his cheek soft." She leaves out articles. Here and there, not always.. just often enough to bother me. "Son goes to window." Now I wouldn't mind it much but she doesn't do this consistently throughout the book. And so if I were the editor I'd say, 'make up your mind which way ya want to go lady." Either keep the idiosyncratic style throughout the book or hang it up... despite the technique issues, I do find her thoughts inspiring and I will finish this one....