Reading Ann Voskamp’s blog post today was a balm for my soul.
She writes, “Grace is never passive. Grace is a hijacker. Grace hijacks the dark…your calling is radically this: Gloriously hijack every darkness with grace….give thanks in the most unlikely places….Why not get really subversive with this giving thanks and go hard after the dark this month: take the dare to write down 1000 gifts in the month of November…(because) daily doxology is how to detox your soul….a personal revolution of gratitude turns everything around.”
She is calling this the “November Niagara Of Thanks.”
I am going to start today. It is the 10th so if I am to record a little over 33 gifts a day, I will need to name 333 graces today.
And am I ever ready to do it!
This year has been without a doubt the hardest, most exhausting and heartbreaking year I have ever lived.
It has been the wildest ride with my Savior yet. There have been so many moments that my heart has pounded with fear or felt like it was going to break right in two and then shatter into a million tiny shards. There have been times when I felt like I couldn’t even breathe. I have cried buckets of tears. There have been moments when I have had to cling with all my remaining strength to the TRUTH of His Word that says that all is well when my life circumstances scream the opposite. I have asked Him a million questions but have never once questioned His character.
Because I know my Jesus. Having given His very life for me, I can trust Him with everything, even that which I do not understand. As battered and bruised as I am, I am more in love with Him than ever. I know how faithful and good He is. He has spoken His Word and His promises to me over and over again with infinite gentleness and patience. I am experiencing firsthand His healing touch on my busted up heart.
He sends forth His Word and heals me and rescues me from the pit. (Psalm 107:20).
I have lived that verse this year.
The reason Ann’s post spoke so forcefully to me today is that I am sick of the darkness. It is unrelenting in this season of my life, (and the lives of so many others. People are hurting today as never before. Every single person I know is going through some type of hardship) and like a rush of fresh air—and fresh JOY—Ann reminded me that darkness NEVER gets the last word.
Why?
Because Jesus IS the LIGHT of the world (John 8:12). And He is here, in this place, with me, even as the darkness hovers and threatens to overwhelm.
I do not have to let it.
I can choose to fight back with His grace and His light and His truth and His power.
So I will pick up my pen and this very day, that pen will become a sword that will slash defiantly at the darkness.
As I write down 333 ways that He is showing His never-ending love to me, His light will flood my soul and chase the darkness away. The enemy will go down in flames like the defeated loser he is and will always be.
I will fight and as I do, He will put the steel back into my soul.
And I will do it all again tomorrow and the next day and the next until by the end of this month, I will have written down 1000 gifts that come from His merciful hand, straight from Heaven to me.
And I will see and experience firsthand how His Light ALWAYS overcomes the darkness. I will rejoice in what will now become a November Niagara Of Thanks.
Join me?
Arise from the depression and prostration in which circumstances have kept you—rise to new life! Shine and be radiant with the glory of the Lord, for your Light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!—Isaiah 60:1
Power Of A Moment 