step two: a grateful heart

when my girls were younger, i placed two small journals on our kitchen table.

a thankfulness journal & a prayer request journal.

they were nothing special as far as books go

but my hope was that these little guys would pack a powerful reminder to each of us

to find something each day in which we were grateful

&

a physical reminder to pray for others.

i'll be honest

every page isn't full in those books

but i do have a keepsake of sweet prayers

& sweet reminders of things their hearts were grateful for.

i wrote last week about some things i need to do 

in order to get my time and my priorities in line.

the first and obvious step for me personally 

is spending quality time each morning reading scripture.

the second step

is cultivating a heart of gratitude.

i saw this little gratitude journal at one of my favorite stores in Seaside

but you can grab it here 

 

i've placed this journal

once again,

beside our kitchen table.

my prayer is that each of us will take a moment to reflect on something

each day

that we are thankful for.

something each day

to remind us to look for the good

to look for miracle in the simple every day

to be wowed by the things that might otherwise be taken for granted.

i think many of us have been blown away

& inspired by Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts

let me share a few of Ann's thoughts~~

"when I give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me." 

"Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle."

& possibly my favorite~ 

"Being 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 voskamp

~

my hope for you today

is no matter where you are,

whether your personal gratitude journal

(whatever that may be)

is overflowing with blessings

or your gratitude is truly a sacrifice of praise

lifted up when your day is painful or your heart is dry,

that we each take the time

& enter what truly is in front of us

&

find that for which we are grateful.

i'm betting the length of that list would

blow us away

xo

ya'll are awesome!!!!

 seriously!!!

you are absolutely awesome.

for several months my comments had stopped coming in via my email.

i hadn't changed anything in my blogger settings, but my comment notification was

now only found when i logged in, went to my dashboard, blah blah blah.

low & behold, the email verification began working again for this last post

so

email after email was filled with your words of thanksgiving.

what a beautiful thing!!!

from stories of relationships reconciled
to beautiful weather,

to healing marriages,

to favorite pets

to the unemployed now finding a job

the words of thanksgiving from a thankful people echoed on & on.

beautiful

powerful

humble words!!

in the book, ann begins to list things she is thankful for

& obviously writes up to 1,000.

melodic expressions of gratitude even in the midst of crisis.

many days are like that. aren't they?

a sacrifice of praise, 

hands held out in thanksgiving

despite pain or disappointment.

yet at that time, i believe our Heavenly Father,

who's love for us is beyond our understanding,

is blessed.

& i want to thank you.

many of you sent words of encouragement to me

and for that i am deeply grateful.

thank you

when i trained for the half marathon,

when i asked about nutrition advice

& when i shared about emily's mission trip

you emailed, and facebooked, and tweeted and sent packages

& words of love and encouragement.

i am so thankful for YOU!!

i used the random number generator despite my inability to figure out how to post the widget...
so i apologize for my lack of formality
but the winner of the book is Tessie!

please email me your information & i will gladly send you a copy of
One Thousand Gifts!

one thousand gifts & a little giveaway

one the character qualities that always draws me to another person
is that of a grateful heart.

gratitude is contagious. don't you think?

& i believe having an attitude of gratitude can be the deciding factor between happiness and joy.
happiness occurs when all is well in life, for the moment anyways.
versus true joy.  joy blooms in our lives when practicing gratitude has been cultivated.

a joyful spirit & a peaceful heart.
those are two things that sometimes elude me when things are falling apart.
who am i fooling?  they often elude me at the mention of the possibility of the maybe....well before the falling apart has even begun. which honestly, it rarely does.
i disappoint myself when i see how quickly my happy nature gets all out of whack the instant a crisis arises or the instant i decide to worry about something. which incidentally seldom comes to fruition anyways.
but i feel that having a grateful heart cultivates that joyful spirit that i truly long for.
& then when i'm focused on what i'm grateful for, peace often follows. & quickly too!

i'm not all 'my glass is half full'
 nor am i all for faking when times are hard just to appear like all is well.
having said that i realize there is often a fine line between working things through privately and carefully deciding when to react or respond.
geez, what do i know?! it's early in the morning and i'm trying to make sense of the all the thoughts rumbling around in my head about a thankful heart.

what i'm trying to say is that i truly want to be authentic
 i want to be real.
but equally important,
i want to always have my eyes open for the things that i'm grateful for.

years ago, when the girls were little i made a thankfulness journal.
sounds sorta corny,  yet i wanted them to practice the principal of counting their blessings & naming them one by one.
being grateful takes practice
it takes an effort to look & see, taste & see that He is good.
& He loves to give good gifts to us.
i want them to look , see, & then be thankful. not just for the biggies either.
that little simple things in their lives, in my life, are worthy of being thankful.

 while i no longer keep the little journal on the kitchen table, i find other ways to keep my girls talking about the good in their life. no matter how small.

one of my sweet bloggy friends, tara, sent me the book "one thousand gifts".
it's the current homecoming queen in blog world as it seems everyone is talking about it!
& everyone is loving it too!
well i could hardly put it down.
i've been familiar with ann voskamp since she traveled with a group of bloggers on a compassion international tour several years ago.
while her writing style is sometimes a tad hard for me to follow, her desire to count it all blessing
to write it out
to make a tangible choice of cultivating a thankful heart
is the gospel in action
and inspires me to keep on keeping on with being thankful even in the hard times.

i have a copy i'd love to give away.
while this gift isn't glamorous or pricey,
it packs priceless words of encouragement that i'm certain will bless you immensely!

i'd love for you to have a little copy of your own,
so leave me a comment.
you don't have to tell me something you're grateful for, but it would be sweet to see my comments just filled in with the chorus of grateful hearts.
so, lay it on me....

a busy week & a new sponsor

the last couple of days we have had severe thunderstorms.  

caroline & one of her sissy's came in during the wee hours of sunday morning 

( prior to the actual time i needed to get up and get ready for work). caroline woke me up saying "mama, i think we just had an earthquake"

i hugged her, mumbled something along the lines of  "its ok, we don't have earthquakes in georgia, now go climb in bed with sissy. & i love you"

yes i polished off my mom of the year trophy later that day too.

i ended up laying awake worrying about the neighbor dog who sadly spends much of her life outside, tied to tree. breaks my heart.

i'm hoping since i didn't see her this morning, it means someone brought her in to the garage, which is not primo 

but atleast it's better than plan a.

working a weekend shift always throws my groove off. & since i rarely have to work sunday, working a sunday shift really throws me off. i hate missing church and then i just feel behind first thing monday morning. 

behind on monday morning is not a great way to start off the week.

especially a busy one.

but aren't they all? for goodness sakes, i feel like we've been in a busy mode for the last year!

this week madison & emily have cheerleading tryouts. it's a weird feeling savannah not being involved.  speaking of savannah, we are knee deep in planning senior year parties, events, college forms, etc. a friend once warned me that having a high school senior was like having a part time job.

thankfully savannah is quite independent. she handled all her college applications and due dates on her own!  she will be going to UGA in the fall and has been invited into their honors program.

i couldn't be prouder.

i am not a big party planner, so i'm feeling a tad overwhelmed with that. she & 3 of her friends decided to do it together. i really wanted to host it here as did she, but knew there would be no way our home could handle upwards of 200 people, especially if it rains!

this week we have another big deal going on.  dan & i will be taking emily to apply for a passport. emi is going to peru with our church for three weeks....three!...in june on a mission trip.

i will share more about that later, but she is knee deep in fund raising.

one of my most favorite friends will be heading in to atlanta friday & staying over at our home! 

we'll hit the atlanta mart & then take her to one of our many favorite places to eat.

can't wait to see her!

i was tickled to see that rocker sheryl crow has a new cookbook
featuring healthy immune boosting & easy recipes.

i'm definitely looking forward to grabbing this one!

while i'm on the subject of books....
i read the birth order book years ago but i honestly think it was before i had such a large family.
so i've pulled it back out, the new updated edition.

i love to understand why we do what we do. especially in the family setting.
& especially in a family setting with all girls.

& finally, i wanted to introduce my new sponsor, DaySpring.
if you're reading in google reader or via email, you won't see the banner on the sidebar,
however if you open my site and visit DaySpring you will see there is currently a 25% special.
you can also purchase One Thousand Gifts for 25% too!

happiness found in books & the happiness of a dog

anytime i return from running errands

this is what brinkley does.

he waits patiently for someone

anyone

to throw him a tennis ball.

when we're done

he's the happiest dog in the world.

if all of life were this simple.

 

 speaking of happiness....around here, books make us happy.

when the girls were little i would encourage them to take care of their books

& not color in them or tear them up.

i would say "books are our friends"

caroline would repeat, "books - friends"

we still say that 

in her former 2 year old voice of course.

a couple of weeks ago,

i thought it was sorta cool that everyone's current reads were all classics.

dan read & loved the bonhoeffer book if any of you are looking for a great biography.

i believe 2010 was the 50th anniversary of 'to kill a mockingbird'

so we picked up a couple different anniversary editions.

once i pulled everyone's reads together
i then decided to photograph some of our collection.

clearly i had a little too much free time
because who does this?

 

 

these are two super cute whimsical versions of the classics cinderella and thumbelina.

'cinderella, as if you dind't already know the story'

&

'thumblina, tiny runaway bride.'

i love to collect red hardbacks.
 'the little red book of wisdom' is wonderful,
written by a friend of ours
& one i highly suggest.

'revolutionary parenting' is one of my favorites on the subject of parenting.

& i also love books with deckled edge pages.

my latest read...

it deserves its own post.
'one thousand gifts'
fabulous
raw
emotional
& will change your heart.
i'll be posting & giving away a copy later this week...