Eucharisteo

I recently started reading "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp--a book that outlines the journey of intentionally embracing a lifestyle of radical gratitude and learning to find God amidst the mediocrity of everyday life.

She begins by discussing this idea of eucharisteo, which in the original Greek translates to "he gave thanks." She does a simple word study:

- The root word of eucharisteo is charis, which means "grace." [Grace is enveloped by thanksgiving.]

- Chara, the derivative of charis, means "joy."

And so, she poses the question: Is the height of our holy joy dependent on the depths of our thanksgiving?

Lately I've found myself wrestling with this idea of finding joy amidst my anxiety. Amidst the busyness of classes, preparing for graduation, applying for jobs, planning a wedding, and finding time for the people I love in between. Some days, life feels so crazy and busy that it begins to feel somewhat like I'm going through the motions--striving to get to this place that is life after graduation, after the wedding, after finding a job. When things will finally settle down. But I want to live fully right here, where God has me right now.

I'm not interested in transient pleasure. I'm after real, pure, holy joy--the kind that makes one positively radiate. I love this idea that Voskamp is presenting: that the deepest, purest, holiest joy is simply obtained through the giving of thanks.

Well, I'd like to think that I'm thankful for everything.

But I love this next thought: "...slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life" (p. 57). How true and so very humbling.

It's one thing to be generally grateful for what you have, but another entirely to be specifically thankful for each individual blessing. One of the author's friends challenges her to make a list of one thousand blessings that she is thankful for, and I decided to take that challenge as well. It sounds a bit daunting, but even after the first five things I wrote down I couldn't help but smile. The simplest things that bring a smile to my face, but that I've never actually thought to thank God for:

1. Waking up in time to watch the sun rise

2. Laughing until it hurts

3. A smile from a stranger

Really, the littlest things that happen every single day, and somehow I've managed to neglect to see them for what they are: gifts from God. And so I'm on a mission--a journey, if you will--to discover joy and life in the smallest of blessings, and to train my heart to seek out opportunities for gratitude.

"When we lay the soil of our hard lies 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." - Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts