Life is NOT an Emergency

Each morning I have been trying to read through my new devotional book, One Thousand Gifts Devotional: Reflections on Finding Everyday Graces by Ann Voskamp.  Most of you know of my love for Ann's powerful writing!  She has been given an incredible gift of writing and uses it for God's glory!  Searching through my daily life, looking to find all of the "gifts" the Lord has given me truly has made me a much  more thankful, introspective person.

Here are a few excerpts from the devotional to give you a taste of the deeper thoughts she provokes:

- How do I fully live when life is full of hurt?

- ... but to choose to live as one filling with His grace?  Choosing to fill with all that He freely gives and fully live - with glory and grace and God?  I know it but I don't want to: it is a CHOICE!

- A lack of doxology leads to depravity! (WOW!)

- If all the dismembering wickedness in the world begins with an act of forgetting - the the act of literally counting blessings literally re-members us to God!

- Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo - the table of thanksgiving.  Is the height of my chara joy dependent on the depths of my eucharisteo thanks?  So then as long as thanks is possible, then joy is ALWAYS possible.

In the most recent entry I have read, she speaks of recognizing grace.  Ann speaks "Calm, Haste makes waste.  Life is not an emergency.  Life is brief and fleeting, but it is not an emergency.  Emergencies are sudden, unexpected events - but is anything under the sun unexpected to God?  Stay CALM, enter the moment, give thanks!  I can always give thanks because an all-powerful God has all these things - all things - always under control... Time is not running out.  This day is not a sieve, losing time.  With each passing minute, each passing year, there's this deepening awareness that I am filling, gaining time.  We stand on the brink of eternity."

I thought this passage was INCREDIBLE!  So often in life we run through it, going to the next activity, next minute, the next hour, next day all the while, we forget to enjoy life in the moment.  With little kids, it is especially easy to consider life an emergency.  I am always running late to get Sophia to school, to get to MOPS, to get to a class at the Y, always another dirty diaper to change, 100 chores to fit into a few hours of naptime.  The daily life becomes "urgent" when in fact, it really isn't.  I need not think of life as a sieve, rather life as getting fuller minute by minute I am given grace to go about our life.   Ann said, " Father you are giving me more time to recognize the significance of the Story you are writing on these days.  Cause me to see more of the beautiful moments you place in my life.  I want to slow down and taste your goodness."

Wow, what an incredible prayer!  After reading this day, I was truly convicted that I need not treat life as an emergency, rather, treat it as days FULL of ways to see God's goodness and grace!

If you are looking for a devotional that is inspiring and easy to fit into your daily life, I strongly recommend Ann's.  The link is in the top paragraph!

Do you see life as an emergency?   How can you join me in recognizing God's goodness and grace?