So, here we are - New Year's Eve, 2013.
I've done this blogging "bit" before - and for those of you who know me personally, you may be wondering what has prompted me to try it again? How will I find the time?
Let me explain why I'm here.
I am currently reading One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp (I highly recommend following her blog!) and find it to be an incredibly appropriate book to be reading as I prepare for a new year. I'm not usually one to make lots of resolutions, but I can say that I definitely try to approach a new year with reflection on the past year and work to form a few goals for the coming year ahead. I try to focus my goals on spiritual matters, to see how I might draw closer to Christ in the coming year. This year is no exception. However, I've been feeling as though I've been floundering with an area of direction where I needed to be focusing my efforts.
While reading this book, it hit me SMACK dab in the forehead - this is the direction I need to take this year -- growing a THANKFUL heart. Ann Voskamp states in her book that, "The real problem of life is never a lack of time. The real problem of life - in my life - is lack of thanksgiving" (p 72). This couldn't have been truer of me, I'm afraid.
This year, I'm going to strive to find a minimum of three of God's gifts to me each day and record them here. Some may be in picture form, others just a notation. I'm going to change my perspective from glass-half-empty to glass-half-full and have a heart of gratefulness for all that He has done for me. God is in all the details and He loves me so very much. By living in the moment, it will be my hope that I can learn to slow down and truly relish in God's grace and remember daily that He is in control and is daily offering me mementos of His love and grace. This blog is a means to help keep me accountable in this venture for 2014. In addition, if it possibly aids in passing the blessing on to you or challenges you to also start living in the moment and find the gifts bestowed to you from a loving God, then that's just a bonus.
I don't expect this to be easy every day of the year. Nor do I think I'm going to have any profound words to share with you, I'm afraid. What I do hope is that maybe the Lord can use the blessings I'm finding in my life through this journey, as a means of blessing or encouragement to you. This blog will be my thank offering to God. My journey to becoming a woman of prayer, a woman of THANKS.
Ephesians 5:20, "giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,"
