1000 Blessings

I am accepting a challenge - a 1000 part challenge - and passing that challenge along to you. This is a passage that I read last night from a deeply moving blog, Holy Experience...

"A List of a Thousand Things, beginning with #1. I am daily jotting down items on my Thousand Gifts List, working, one-by-one, up to a thousand gifts. Not of gifts I want. But of gifts I have. As the moments slip down the hour glass of time, I am scratching down the gifts---just as they happen, as they arrive, as they are unwrapped---that He has given that make my life grace, the daily graces that He gives in an infinite number of ways, that stir me. "...windmills lazying in twilight's last breeze.... soft wool sweaters with turtle neck collars.... the faint smell of cattle and straw...." I am seeing things I have never seen before, atuned and aware of this constant, endless stream of gifts from His hand. I am one waking from slumber....from the stupor of indifference and ignorance. I have sight, fresh and keen---the world is new and full of His gifts. Too often I miss Him, oblivious, blind. I don't see all the good things that He is giving me, gracing me with, brushing my life with. True, He is everywhere, always. But maybe, before The Gift List, I thought of Him as further off, not so close. When I started to see all the things that I love bestowed upon me, I started to see Him as near, present, everywhere, showering me with good things. Seeing the things I love all around me gives me eyes to see that I am loved, that He loves me."

Not each and every one of them is necessarily spiritual. These are just two of her "gifts" mentioned in her blog:
860. Leaning into the small of his back as we ride fields, wind in our hair;
868. Cherries ripening out in the orchard

Although, as you go, you'll find that each and every one, no matter what they are, really and truly are spiritual. (James 1:17 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.)

If you are up for the challenge... List 6 things each day and by Christmas you will have a list of 1000 blessings. Imagine Christmas Eve, around the fire, with the ones you love most dearly, and sharing with them something you were thankful for today, July 8th! No rules - just note each day the things you have or experience that you are thankful for. Let's together see how this changes our lives...

I've had about 24 hours to think of what the very first entries should be and I am still struggling because shouldn't they be what's first in my heart? Yet even as I write this sentence, I'm thinking of other things just as important or better ways to phrase them... So, here I go with the first six but not necessarily the top 6...

1) Grace and the longing between Christ and me.

2) A husband who WANTS to live for God WITH ME.

3) Parents who were strict and still don't waver in nudging me toward obedience.

4) Teachers who made me memorize verses as a child (because now they're hidden in my heart)

5) An abusive first marriage (because I was truly saved from it - physically, emotionally and spiritually and that has changed who I am)

6) Generally, for my children (because of them I want a holy life)

Please join me in counting our blessings...