List

I am a list person. I write to do lists, to buy lists, to go lists, wish lists, gift lists, birthday lists, organizing lists, coupon and deal lists...whatever kind of list you can think of, I'd dare to say that I have made one before. Well, almost. ;)

Recently, I began hearing a lot of hoorah about another list. A 1000 gifts list. At first I just looked right over it. Didn't think about it again, didn't look into it at all. Then I heard that this list was revolutionizing some people's lives, their attitudes, their hearts, their minds. Well by golly, I'm always up for a good revolution. So I Googled. Anyone who knows anything about me knows how much I LOVE to Google. I swear you really can find anything on using Google.

Anyway. Ahem.

I found the book 1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp. After reading just a couple reviews I was intrigued. I immediately ordered it on Amazon and two days later I was settling in to begin my new book. Ann Voskamp's biography reads much like my own. In it, the words "messy," "gritty," "overwhelmed" and "exuberant" describe her life in a warm and welcome way. A relateable way. However, where my biography stumbles upon flustered, conditional and impatient, hers continues with words like grace, beauty and peace. She is striving to find the extraordinary gifts of God in the ordinary. In the everyday. In kids' homework, dishes in the sink, the leaves blown in on the porch. This book is helping me to open my heart and turn my eyes up and then out. To look around me and see each and every thing through God's eyes. Really, everything. Right now as I look around, I see my inhaler, a pen, a coupon, a camera, an old high school ID card, tax paperwork. Before I would have thought "Ugh...get off the computer and clean up this mess!" Now, (see it's already freeing, I'm no longer worried about cleaning up the mess!) I am thankful for my inhaler, my education and ability to write, a camera to record and save special memories.

So I am going to start my list, an ongoing list of 1000 things, gifts, that I have and am thankful for.
I encourage any and all of you to read this book if you get a chance or even just think about finding 1000 things in your life that you can look at as a gift from God. My friend Christine at The Collins Clan is also reading this book and blogging about it! Check out her list in the works!

Here's the beginning of my list:

1. A loving husband
2. Salvation
3. Heaven
4. My children
5. Health
6. Baking
7. Photographs
8. Memories
9. Warm blankets
10. White chocolate
11. Dew
12. Rain
13. Sidewalk chalk

I'll continue to add to it and post it as I do. It has been inspiring to look at things with this perspective, while not new, incredibly beautiful and uncommon.