Read With Me \\ One Thousand Gifts (Week One)

A glowing sun-orb fills an August sky the day this story begins, the day I am born, the day I begin to live. (pg. 9)

I'm reading through One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and blogging my thoughts here. If you're interested in following along, check out my initial post and feel free to add your thoughts.

First Thoughts

I'm in a love-hate relationship with Voskamp's writing. I love its language and flow at times, and at others I just wish she would get to the point. This book is a hard one to read fast.

I'm still trying to figure out where Voskamp is headed with this. To thanksgiving, I'm pretty sure. But it is a winding road to get there. Below is my "analysis" and thoughts on the first two chapters I read this week.

Chapter 1: An Emptier, Fuller Life


I thought of a few words to describe this first chapter of One Thousand Gifts.

Raw.

Broken.

Empty.

It isn't exactly a happy beginning, but it is authentic.

Where is God, really? How can He be good when babies die, and marriages implode, and dreams blow away, dust in the wind? (pg. 11)

Ann Voskamp's questions are not exactly new ones. People have been dealing with them for years, decades, and centuries. It's how she chooses to answer them that interests me.

I hunger for filling in a world that is starved. (pg. 17)

For now, at the beginning, she speaks of grace. Of a God with a plan that is too big and too awesome for us to fully see.

When faced with the death of her nephew, Ann tells his father that she would have written the little boy's story differently. She would have rejected "God's plan." But the father's words surprise her. In the midst of his sadness, he will trust God. Ann thinks about the death of her own sister so many years before, when she was just a kid. She would have written that story differently too. Could she ever fully trust God's plan? How could she reach that place of trust instead of fear, thanksgiving instead of refusal?

“Just that maybe … maybe you don’t want to change the story, because you don’t know what a different ending holds.” (pg. 21)

Ann's journey is just beginning, and as readers, our journeys are just beginning as well. I like how she frames the chapter with these two stories: the one of her own sister's death and the one of her nephew's death. It is poignant and honest and real. In the midst of the storm, how can we bring ourselves to trust in God? That He has a plan we cannot see? That He works together good for those who love Him?

Chapter 2: A Word to Live...and Die By

How do we live fully so we are fully ready to die? (pg. 29)

A nightmare awakens Ann, literally and figuratively. In her dreams she is diagnosed with terminal cancer. In her reality she wonders what she would do if this scenario were true. Had she fully lived? Was she ready to die? No. Her answer is no. And this begins her quest for a full life. She finds that thanksgiving is key.

Thanksgiving—giving thanks in everything—prepares the way that God might show us His fullest salvation in Christ. (pg. 40)

Here's where things get interesting. Ann studies her Bible, sprinkles the text with Greek words, and comes to the conclusion that without thanksgiving, there cannot be full salvation.

I would never experience the fullness of my salvation until I expressed the fullness of my thanks every day...(pg. 40)  

I'm trying to figure this one out. (I knew this wouldn't be an easy book to read. It requires thought and study.) On the one hand I am understanding of her point. How can we accept God's gift without thanksgiving? How can we not be thankful? It seems impossible to me. But Ann takes this further. It isn't just being thankful for that specific gift of salvation, it is being thankful for everything. Every moment, every breath. Without that constant thanksgiving, she says, we cannot experience salvation in its fullness.

But what does that actually mean? Does that mean we are only half-saved? not saved? Or is she saying that we are saved but just don't reap all the joy that we could if we were only thankful? I had to read that section a couple of times, and I'm still pondering. I think she means the latter, that without thanks we cannot experience our relationship with Christ at its fullest or best. I hope she means that.

This chapter's poetic voice bothered me somewhat. Especially when it got deep into Greek words and Scripture and thankfulness and joy and grace; I needed more straight-forward and less poetic explanations.

I'm still reading. Still curious. Ann has just finished the second chapter with the question: do I really want to be saved? Now there's a question to ponder.

One thing about One Thousand Gifts is that it is just so personal. At times I feel odd reading these deep, personal thoughts about life and death and God and salvation. In a way it is comforting to know that someone else out there has had similar questions but in others I feel like it is too much to have to wade through someone else's issues when I have my own to deal with. But I guess that is what this memoir type book is about. Someone sharing her journey so that others might be helped in their journeys. One Thousand Gifts comes across as more than a memoir though, so it is tough to find the line between memoir and doctrine, storytelling and sermon.

If you are reading along, check out the downloadable reading guide. It offers some interesting thought provokers.

Until next time,