Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all those who don't numb themselves to really living.
Ann VoskampResearch actually indicates that if you write down what you're grateful for, it increases your happiness by 25 percent. And who doesn't want that? And God's word says (1 Thessalonians 5), "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Who doesn't want to know exactly what God's will is for them?
Ann VoskampI wonder if the greatest challenges was to keep pressing into [writing] when I had never been here before. I felt like Abraham - being called to something that he didn't know how to get to.
Ann VoskampThe blog is meant to be a bit of a side chapel - a place to slip into and still and encounter the glory of God - and come away again with a fresh sense that your life, right where you are, is a holy experience - that God dwells with you and in you, and where you are is holy ground, worthy of reverence and celebration and wonder.
Ann VoskampThe practice of giving thanks...eucharisteo...this is the way we practice the presence of God, stay present to His presence, and it is always a practice of the eyes. We don't have to change what we see. Only the way we see.
Ann VoskampDarkness transfigures into light, bad transfigures into good, grief transfigures into grace, empty transfigures into full. God wastes nothing – ‘makes everything work out according to his plan.’ (Ephesians 1:11).
Ann VoskampI think God calls us to small things, to faithfulness right where we are, to just do the next thing. I was simply writing out our family stories in my online journal, scratching out what I want to remember, what I was wrestling out with God.
Ann VoskampThere is unwavering peace today when an uncertain tomorrow is trusted to an unchanging God.
Ann VoskampComparison is a thug that robs your joy. But its even more than that - Comparison makes you a thug who beats down somebody - or your soul.
Ann Voskamp[Bill Jensen] shared his extensive publishing background with me, and prayerfully offered to work out a proposal and to see if God opened any publishing doors? I never get over the unexpected ways of God.
Ann VoskampThanksgiving creates abundance; and the miracle of multiplying happens when I give thanks-take the just one loaf, say it is enough, and give thanks-and He miraculously makes it more than enough.
Ann VoskampThere is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.
Ann VoskampEvery moment I live, I live bowed to something. And if I don't see God, I'll bow down before something else.
Ann VoskampThe only way to care for the disadvantaged - is to disadvantage yourself -which is guaranteed to turn out for your advantage.
Ann VoskampOur [people's] very saving is associated with our gratitude. Which follows: if our fall in the garden was ingratitude, then salvation must be intimately related to giving of thanks.
Ann VoskampThe wrinkled man in the wheelchair with the legs wrapped, the girl with her face punctured deep with the teeth marks of a dog, the mess of the world, and I see - this, all this, is what the French call d'un beau affreux, what the Germans call hubsch-hasslich - the ugly-beautiful. That which is perceived as ugly transfigures into beautiful. What the postimpressionist painter Paul Gauguin expressed as 'Le laid peut etre beau' - The ugly can be beautiful. The dark can give birth to life; suffering can deliver grace.
Ann VoskampBeing in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing.... Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.
Ann VoskampThey say time is money, but that's not true. Time is life. And if I want the fullest life, I need to find fullest time... the busyness of your life leaving little room for the source of your life... God gives us time. And who has time for God? Which makes no sense.
Ann VoskampAll God makes is good. Can it be that that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God?
Ann VoskampWhen we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us?
Ann VoskampIf the Church is a body, and the body is a business, isn't that the same thing as prostitution?
Ann VoskampHe does have surprising, secret purposes. I open a Bible, and His plans, startling, lie there barefaced. It’s hard to believe it, when I read it, and I have to come back to it many times, feel long across those words, make sure they are real. His love letter forever silences any doubts: “His secret purpose framed from the very beginning [is] to bring us to our full glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7 NEB).
Ann VoskampMaybe the woman who was handed the book [One Thousand Gifts] by a friend the morning before she had an abortion scheduled - and read the book and realized that this pregnancy that she didn't want - perhaps it too could be a gift from God? And then she said showed me the photo of this laughing 5 month old boy.
Ann VoskampI don't really want more time; I just want enough time. Time to breathe deep and time to see real and time to laugh long, time to give You glory and rest deep and sing joy and just enough time in a day not to feel hounded, pressed, driven, or wild to get it all done-yesterday.
Ann VoskampWhen we fixate on the worst in something, we render ourselves incapable of fixing anything... But attend to the good in something - and we act towards the best in everything.
Ann VoskampGratitude is the most fruitful way of deepening your consciousness that you are a divine choice.
Ann VoskampDo I really smother my own joy because I believe that anger achieves more than love? That Satan's way is more powerful, more practical, more fulfilling in my daily life than Jesus' way? WHy else get angry? Isn't it because I think complaining, exasperation, resentment will pound me up into the full life I really want? When I choose-and it is a choice-to crush joy with bitterness, am I not purposefully choosing to take the way of the Prince of Darkness? Choosing the angry way of Lucifer because I think it is more effective-more expedient-than giving thanks?
Ann VoskampIf trust must be earned, hasn't God unequivocally earned our trust with the bark on the raw wounds, the thorns pressed into the brow, your name on the cracked lips.
Ann VoskampYou were made for the place where your real # passion meets # compassion because there lies your real purpose.
Ann VoskampLife isn't an emergency. Christ is in charge of every moment of the day; nothing catches Him off guard.
Ann VoskampI was simply writing out our family stories in my online journal, scratching out what I want to remember, what I was wrestling out with God. Unbeknownst to me, two readers of the posts, both published authors, contacted their agent, Bill Jensen, within 24 hours of each other, encouraging him to drop me a line. Which he did.
Ann VoskampWe want clarity -- and God gives a call. We want a road map --- and God gives a relationship. We want answers -- and God gives His hand.
Ann VoskampThe Word God wastes nothing and He heals two broken hearts with one story - the reader and the writer.
Ann Voskamp