Tea with Ann Voskamp: Grace and Gratitude

My friend gave me the book One Thousand Gifts in the summer. I read the book and fell in love not only with it, but with its author...Ann Voskamp writes poetically, raw from the soul...and she loves Him. She loves Him so much...

I recently subscribed to her blog, A Holy Experience, and I have been so blessed by what I've read.

My daddy is sick and my mom is out and my sister is sleeping and it's cold outside, so when I woke up this morning, I decided to make myself a hot cup of peach tea and spend some time with my Jesus and with Ann. I was not disappointed.

Her most recent post is titled, "How Giving Thanks Can Unexpectedly Give You A New Life", appropriately, since Thanksgiving was yesterday. I'm just going to write down a few key points.

• Life is a furnace and the faithful live by the Shadrach-prayer of only 4 words: "Even if He doesn't." This world has nothing that can burn down the faith of a heart on fire for God.

• There is no right living apart from really thanking.

• What if we celebrated Thanksgiving the most because it was the least commercialized? And what if the grace of God was only rightly answered by the gratitude of men?

• "Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth. Grace evokes gratitude like a voice an echo. Gratitude follows grace as thunder follows lightening." -Barth

• When you know your Father is loving--what can you fear losing? "If you haven't lost Christ, child, nothing is ever lost." --Voskamp

• Gratitude follows grace--as thunder follows lightening. And the storm is grace because whatever drives us into God is a grace from God.  

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All is grace...❤ 

By grace, we have much to offer thanks for. There's sky and food and family and this country and a love we don't deserve and there's grace that comes as storms and the only answer to God's unending grace is man's unending gratitude. When you live a life in a covenant of grace, you can't help but live out a covenant of gratitude.

...and I had to stop reading for a moment and whisper, "Thank You, Lord..."

The way that grace and gratitude echo to each other through all things...

And my gracious God Who gives richly and labors and brings life and beauty from my human brokenness...

And all is grace and my heart is full and my God is always good and I am always loved.

All is grace...

Thank You, Lord...❤