A Review: One Thousand Gifts

I recently finished One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, by Ann Voskamp. Ann recounts her journey of learning to be thankful to God for all of his gifts, whether she would consider it a gift or a set-back. A friend challenges her to make a list of 1,000 things that she is thankful for... and through that journey, she begins to understand the importance of thankfulness and how becoming thankful opens the door to a more intimate relationship with God. One of my favorite passages of the book is actually a quote from Jean Pierre de Caussade,


"You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are. You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies-though that never occurs to you. Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet [God's] beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is." (p.125)


There were a few things about the book that concerned me -- for example, I found her writing style distracting. Also, some of her theology and use of Scripture seemed a little fuzzy. However, those issues aren't deal-breakers, and what I gained from the book outweighs the negative. The book encouraged me to pursue thankfulness in all circumstances, and to see the goodness in all of God's gifts. To trust Him with my life.


I would recommend this book, with just a word of caution -- to read wisely and cautiously.

Seasons

This week we've been getting a little break from the bitter cold that is usually February in the midwest. It's also the time when the days are long enough for me to drive all the way home from work before it gets dark. It's the little things. ;)


Today I drove home from work-- without the heat on in my car-- enjoying this little tease of spring. And it made me think of two things:


1. After a winter of dark, gloomy days and bitterly cold temperatures--particularly the past few weeks where we've dropped below zero--makes me more grateful for the little things. During the summer, I would never imagine longing for 40 degree days or the sun not to set until 6pm. But now I'm so grateful for the extra daylight and temperature boost.

2. I know that it will go back to bitterly cold winter in just a few short days, but I'm still glad this weather is here right now. It's reminding me that winter is not forever. The darkness only lasts until the morning. Daylight comes. Spring comes. It reminds me to be thankful that God is in control and He doesn't leave us in one season any longer than we can handle. 


Lord, may I remember to be grateful.

oh, hi

it's been awhile since i've visited this here blog. i've been caught up in a whirlwind of last-minute wedding planning and it's only getting more last-minute.


here are some of the things that have happened recently, or just things that have been on my mind...

• andrew peterson, dancing in the minefields. yes, brett posted it already and i know there's a lot of overlap in readers, but it deserves another shout out.
• i have been hanging out in 1 peter in my quiet times lately, and 1 peter 2:16 has been on my mind. haven't quite figured out why, or even figured it out... so i'll just keep hanging out there.
• i was baptized on sunday.
• brett and i had engagement pictures taken (yeah, most people get engagement pictures taken right around when they get engaged... we got ours done 2 months before we got married. :) no harm done, right?) you can view them by visiting this website, click "wedding", click "proofing", and use the password "Wendle".
• starbucks started offering free wi-fi.
• i'm coming up on my last week of work. this means two things: 1. i'll have a lot more time to devote to wedding details and packing(!) and 2. we are getting really close to the wedding!
• this is just fun.
  

hopefully my next post will actually have a point and be somewhat significant. until then, i hope this was, at the very least, entertaining. :)


edit: if i had waited just one more day to post, it would have been a full month... i'm not sure how i feel about missing it by one day.

One reason that I'm longing for Heaven.

A few months ago I was in a discussion about longing for heaven. It wasn't just about the fact that we're longing for heaven. It was about the things, people, ideas on earth that makes us recognize that we long for heaven. Some people mentioned that there are certain songs or certain types of music that stir something inside of them--something awakens that realizes there's more of that. Some people mentioned the beauty of nature as that agent of longing.


One person mentioned something that really struck me--obviously, since I've been thinking about it ever since. He mentioned relationships, friendships. We experience this longing for deep relationships with other people. We hear and read about what fellowship in the church should look like, what gospel community should look like, what the body of Christ should look like... so we search for it, we long for it, we attempt to have it. But, we always fall short. Either the frienships aren't reciprocated. Or sin damages the community. Or it just isn't quite what we thought it would be.


So we keep longing.
Not because are friendships aren't good. We're longing for real fellowship. Friendship that isn't hindered by sin. The kind of intimacy in community for which we were created. We long for more.


Honestly, I have no idea what heaven is going to be like. I don't know what "friendships" will look like, or what kind of "community" we'll have. I don't know if these words will even make sense in eternity. But I'm pretty sure that all of our longings for this real fellowship will be met there.
And if there weren't hundreds of reasons to be excited and hopeful and longing for heaven already... here's just another one that keeps me hoping. :)

No cap, no gown, no ceremony.

Over the past few days I have attempted more than once to write this post. To announce to the world that I'm a drop out. To reflect on the ending of the past seventeen years of my life. To find closure; to make it seem real.


But I just haven't been able to find the words. It's not that I'm ashamed. I've been able to tell plenty of people that I'm not finishing my program. (More on why in a later post.) Many of them comment on how much I smile when I explain why I chose not to return. I feel lighter, less anxious, more alive. It's a good thing.


But how do you find closure to seventeen years of your life? For seventeen years of my life I have been a student. I have structured my life around August-May. I have had summers off. I have attended classes, done homework, taken tests. I have learned how to miss just enough class. I have learned about myself, about life, and about God.


I have gone from Kindergarten -- in Orland Park... where I almost always wore a white sweater and I met Joanna, who later became my roommate during my freshman year of college.


To Elementary School -- where I thought I was the best speller ever, but I never really picked up anything pertaining to geography.


And then to Junior High -- in Mundelein... where I thought boys and how popular I was really were the most important things.


And to High School -- when I realized what was important, devoted my life to Christ, and fell in love with the local church.


Then to College -- in my beloved Champaign-Urbana... where I learned more outside of the classroom than inside.


And to my year at Seminary -- in Deerfield... where I met my fiance and learned that I really do learn best outside of the classroom.


And now, I'm leaving the student life, the single life--even my Illinois life!


No cap, no gown, no ceremony. Just an ending.

this has to mean more than just what it says

"Can you comprehend that some of those stars are billions of years old?"

"You know what else is crazy?

source

The sky doesn't actually look like this... some of that light is from a billion years ago, and some of it is just a few days old."

some tuesday grace

This afternoon I was driving and I realized that my mind was racing with wedding planning thoughts, I was anxious and didn't even realize it. So I stopped to pray. God was so gracious in that moment to meet me with some truth.

A few days ago I was chatting with a friend who encouraged me by telling me that something that she tried to remember while she was planning her wedding was that God even knew what the font on her invitations was going to be, He knew the details. When she first told me, it was a good reminder--so comforting to hear. And while I was praying today, the Lord brought that back to mind. He has already planned my wedding. He knows where it will be, who will come, what flowers we'll go with, etc. And it will all be to accomplish His purposes. It's not my job to choose the one option that is going to make the gospel apparent or not. He's already done it.

As hard as it is for me to believe, God is sovereign even in the tiny details of wedding planning. And I just need to seek Him in it, and everything will fall into place. Somehow, I'm planning a wedding that has already been planned. And praise God for that!

wedding & marriage planning.

Chocolate brown dresses + black tuxes = an unhappy bride.

This is the current dilemma in my wedding planning life... and with the amount of hours i have spent thinking about this (more than i'd like to admit!) it has migrated from the "wedding planning only" portion of my brain to a more prominent spot. Ugh.

Last week, it was something else. And next week, i'm sure, it will be something new. I spend hours and hours of my life planning tiny little--some may say petty--details about a wedding. a wedding--the means by which I get married.

I feel like I should be spending hours and hours of my life planning all the details of how I'm going to be married. That seems like a way bigger deal to me. Married?? How the heck do i do that? I don't know how to be a wife!

Ephesians 5:22-34 tells me:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives submit in everything to their husbands.

The passage continues talking about marriage, using the image of Christ and the Church. Whether the relationship of Christ and the Church is supposed to the example for how marriage should function, or if marriage should point to the relationship between Christ and the Church, (actually, it's probably both) all I know is that it's a pretty tall order.

And I feel like I should be spending wayyyy more time planning for that than I am the wedding. I want to focus my time planning to be married rather than to get married. And maybe the potential color clashing should be a significantly lower priority. :)

so i subscribe to the RealSimple blog

... don't make fun of me.

anyways, i read this post the other day, and it got me thinking... about several things. (remind me not to use any more ellipses in this post.) [i really encourage you to read (at least skim!) the article, but a brief overview is that you should ask several questions about every item you think about purchasing (is it necessary? do i have something else that is similar? etc.) basically to keep your life simple by means of less stuff and clutter. she uses an anecdote/analogy about how she had a set of rules for her romantic relationships that she would inform potential suitors on each first date.]

alright, so first: her rules for dating really impress me. it seems that she is using them to accomplish the same purpose as the rules/questions for purchases. she wants simplicity, a life free from clutter, from unnecessary things. she doesn't want unnecessary dating relationships. she wants to rule out the relationships that aren't going to work right away--the ones that are going to be dysfunctional, unhealthy, incompatible, directionless. she doesn't want to clutter her life with unnecessary pain from romantic relationships that could have been avoided with clear communication about expectations at the very beginning.

this is impressive in a generation of people that almost crave directionless, unhealthy, and communication-deprived relationships. (note: i'm not trying to offend or make generalized assumptions, i'm just speaking out of observation and former experience.) to see someone desire fruitful relationships, and to respect herself enough to fight for that--impressive.

second (and let's be honest, less important): she takes the same kind of approach to what she brings into her home. she takes every purchase seriously. she doesn't want unnecessary things in her home, clutter. she's spending her money wisely.

gosh, what my life might be like if i took that same approach. if i took seriously how i spend money. if i asked myself questions before i made a purchase. if i wanted to steward the money i have so graciously been blessed with...

and to think, i'm being convicted about my money-spending habits by a blog post on the real.simple blog. :)

so what are your thoughts? do you think she has good points? does she think about money and purchases well? what about her "dating rules"?

encouraged by the chandlers

when i first heard this sermon, it was one of the most influential in my life.

it was preached less than two weeks before matt chandler suffered a seizure, and a grade 3 tumor was discovered in his brain.

this video was recorded at the end of his second week of chemotherapy. it shows his great faith in the Lord, trusting that God is sovereign and good despite the suffering that has--and will--take place in his life.

and then today, i read this article about the chandlers; a realistic picture of family walking well through suffering.

i have literally nothing to add to anything of this. i just am so encouraged by it all, and i want to encourage all of you to be encouraged by this family. because God is good--all the time.

putting all of my eggs in one basket

"What kind of demeanor/character would you expect to see in someone who has fully yielded to Christ's lordship? How will this affect, for example, a person's happiness? His ambitiousness? Her peacefulness? What will this kind of person be like? What will be the effect on others?"

This was one of the application questions asked of this past Sunday's sermon preached on Matthew 12:1-14.

First of all, if you know me well, you know that I'm not a big fan of questions. I'm even less of a fan of questions that I think are "cheesy". But... I think questions (even cheesy ones) are an important part of growing spiritually--they make me think, and reflect, and even humble myself to respond with cheesy answers--so I'm trying to get better at enjoying questions.

This brings me to Monday, when I had printed out the sermon application questions, and was working through them in my quiet time. I came to this one. I deemed it "cheesy", decided to answer it quickly, and move on. But in processing the answer, I decided it was not a cheesy question at all, but rather an important one.

I started writing what I thought was a picture of a person fully yielded to Christ, and I ended up using the using the phrase "placing all of their eggs in one basket". At first I laughed a little (who the heck writes that?!) but then I thought about it, and realized it was actually pretty acturate, and actually beautiful.

A person fully yielded to Christ is placing all of themself in Christ. They are placing their hopes, desires, weaknesses, future, plans, etc. into Christ's hands, and trusting HIM with them. They are not saying "I'll hang out with Christ, and together we'll work towards my goal of becoming successful." They're saying "All I want is Christ, and He alone is in charge of my life. What He wills is what becomes." They are putting everything into His hands; trusting Him with everything.

Normally, "placing all your eggs in one basket" is considered bad advice; it's risky. But here, in this context, it's the least risky thing. It's freeing, even. You are putting everything into the hands of the only stable One in the universe. Essentially, you are putting all of your eggs into the only basket that won't break. And you are surrendering all of your worry about those eggs.

What's more freeing than that?

are we "the most aggressively inarticulate generation"?

a friend of mine posted a link to this video the other day.

it speaks some real truth about our generation.

http://vimeo.com/3829682

do i speak with authority?

or do i speak in a way that causes people to immediately not take me seriously?

and what impact does that have on how i communicate the gospel effectively?

i just can't seem to get this video out of my head.