52 Books in 52 Weeks
It looks like I won't have any trouble meeting the 52 books goal this year - knock on wood! Of course, my books have all been rather "lightweight", unlike those many of the other participants are reading. I've been a reader my entire life and have read lots of "great literature", some even in Latin, French and German during high school and college. That's not to say that I've read it all or that I shouldn't be reading higher level books, but it seems to me that it's okay to read mostly for fun at this time. Actually, I've been going through all our bookshelves lately, pulling out many that I should read or should want to read or that I meant to read - and boxing those books up for the Friends of the Jacksonville Public Libraries to sell at their well-attended book sale fundraisers. Hope I don't miss any of them! As they say, So Many Books - So Little Time!
Book 39
One Thousand Gifts
Ann Voskamp
2010
"Like most readers, Ann Voskamp hungers to live her one life well. Forget the bucket lists about once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
'How' Voskamp wondered, 'do we find joy in the midst of deadlines, debt, drama, and daily duties? What does a life of gratitude look like when your days are gritty, long, and sometimes dark? What is God providing here and now?'
A beautifully practical guide to living a life of joy, One Thousand Gifts invites you to wake up to God's everyday blessings. As Voskamp discovered, in giving thanks for the life she already had, she found the life she'd always wanted.
Following Voskamp's 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 will discover a way of seeing that opens your eyes to gratitude, a way of living so you are not afraid to die, and a way of becoming present to God's presence that brings a deep and lasting happiness."
Ann Voskamp is a writer with DaySpring (a division of Hallmark), a contributing editor to Laity Lodge's The High Calling, and a global advocate for the poor, traveling for Compassion International. With an educational background in psychology and education from York University and the University of Waterloo, Ann and her husband are farmers in the Mennonite countryside of southwestern Ontario, raising a half dozen kids, crops of corn, and the roof in praise. She writes every day about the everyday wonder at www.aholyexperience.com
I found this book somewhat difficult reading - hard to see where she was going until close to the end - but I read mostly at night just before falling asleep. I want to read it again - and maybe even start my own gifts journal. She definitely has a beautiful writing style.
