This morning I am participating in a health insurance program for United Health Care. They are doing a projection study regarding patient needs for coming year: 2013.
Well-Med receives money according to the number of patients who show a proclivity or possibility for certain types of medical problems. Because of our age (I guess) our doctor ordered sonograms for me and my husband for screening the carotid artery. Although we pray neither of our tests will show blockage, we know this is more money matters than preventive medicine.
Neverthelss, the clinic waiting room is nicely appointed, not too crowded, comfortable chairs all around, good light from lots of glass, and time afforded for posting in my journal.
To start I page back to a list. Thanks to a book by author, poet, and responder to broken hearts, Ann Voskamp, "1,000 Gifts," I am now up to number 142: "this new journaling book, a gift from a friend named Aileen, an answer to prayer. Previously my gifts have been slightly scattered, like me.
Ann's life now brimming and over with thanksgiving for God gifts, she writes of a past dark with losses, and blank of grace, and how listing gifts as a response to a dare from a friend to write down on paper 1,000 gifts, a rare kind of glory has settled over and around her.
She took the challenge and for the first time, became her name: Ann which means grace. Ann's life transformation is affirmation that when we focus on the good and beauty of life all around us, rather than what we see as missing or lacking, or just plain grinding, simple as it sounds God opens doors to the infinity of Himself and that is truly the greatest gift of all.
Since Ann's published her book many have followed her example and taken the dare also. The long list of comments on her blog posts show multitudinous women whose hearts have been touched (and a few men) have been wooed by the prospect of their own lives being transformed as hers has been.
We are writing lists, going on treasure hunts: daily, searching the ground for its gifts. Ground can be scripture, or His creation, or prayer coupled with a life lived out, banked on Jesus' words. From His lips to our hearts.
Ann shares transparently. Her dark I would guess are not easy to think on, yet she has put them out there, up for grabs because she believes God was and is up to something.
As I began to look for gifts, I must admit my quest has been more intermittant, not near as faithful nor intense as Ann's, but I'm trying.
If a person is willing to listen to the Holy Spirit, I believe it will be revealed just how much or how often we allow a tape of negative thoughts to run: critical, judgmental, downer dialogues to play in our minds throughout the day. But when we intentionally change that, by oh so simply writing our gifts, our entire being goes on a trip, but not with drugs. The only drug required is a prescription for thanksgiving.
This gift-listing life-style is no Pollyanna project: bad things still happen. But trusting that God is up to good in our lives, the lives of those who are willing to put their trust in Him, is a challenge worth taking.
For example, in her writing, Ann describes the world as glass. It took me a bit of meditating on this before I was able to grasp her meaning. The natural around becomes not just a window of glass that we get to peek through at the Creator behind the scenes, but a whole world of tranparent revelation, an apocolypse of Him. I say its glass and His thumbprints swirl and whirl upon the surface. Not the pagan idea of God in everything, but the Christian where everything comes from hand of God. We see His doing in all of nature: even our fallen world cannot help but be full of His glory if only we have eyes to see.
As for me, I desire to write again, but much more based not on what I can do for Him but on what Christ can do in me, "Without Me, you can do nothing." The air I breathe, the Person is all and all is truly grace. May I be of the Word, that I might have fruit to my work.
No comments:
Post a Comment