Ann Voskamp works through this in One Thousand Gifts, a book I'm eager to devour in full and which was recommended by our women's retreat speaker last weekend.
I'm pondering her words - that "maybe you don't want to change the story, because you don't know what a different ending holds....it's accepting there are things we simply don't understand. But He does...When we find ourselves groping along, famished for more, we can choose...I think of - all the mysteries I have refused, refused to let nourish me....if the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see...the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave. Maybe so. But how? How do we choose to allow the holes to become seeing-through-to-God places? To more-God places?" Well said. Well questioned.
I commit to figuring out how to accept, to choose nourishment, to see through, to allow for more. My God is good. My God cares deeply and forever. My God is the One with more than One Thousand Gifts.
This morning I begin by finding them in the small things - the freshly made green juice my husband just brought me, after going to the store for ingredients. (That is no small thing to me!) And in the roaring and crashing of the waves here at the beach. Really? That's no small thing either. So are there small things, or just overlooked gifts? My dog sleeping at my feet, with my toes brushing her smooth hair. The bright pink clover flowers rolling down the rocks towards the ocean. The quickly changing sky from rain to sun. I choose. I see a little more clearly. I find gratitude.
