01UndatedJust that maybe … maybe you don’t want to change the story, because you don’t know what a different ending holds.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
02UndatedWe only enter into the full life if our faith gives thanks. Because how else do we accept His free gift of salvation if not with thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance of whatever He gives. Thanksgiving is the manifestation of our Yes! to His grace.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
04UndatedThe highest form of prayer is to the goodness of God. . . . God only desires that our soul cling to him with all of its strength, in particular, that it clings to his goodness.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
06UndatedBut, someone, please give me—who is born again but still so much in need of being born anew—give me the details of how to live in the waiting cocoon before the forever begins?Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
07UndatedWho would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
08UndatedWhen we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us?Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
10UndatedIs the height of my chara joy dependent on the depths of my eucharisteo thanks?Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
12UndatedWhile I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
13UndatedJoy is a flame that glimmers only in the palm of the open and humble hand. In an open and humble palm, released and surrendered to receive, light dances, flickers happy. The moment the hand is clenched tight, fingers all pointing towards self and rights and demands, joy is snuffed out. Anger is the lid that suffocates joy until she lies limp and lifeless.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
15UndatedJoy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy. (Page 57)Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
16UndatedHow does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering. The converse does. (Page 58)Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
17UndatedIt is true, I never stop wanting to learn the hard eucharisteo for deathbeds and dark skies and the prodigal sons. But I accept this is the way to begin, and all hard things come in due time and with practice. Yet now wisps of cheese tell me gentle that this is the first secret step into euchaisteo's miracle. Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant - a seed - this plants the giant miracle. The miracle of eucharisteo, like the Last Supper, is in the eating of crumbs, the swallowing down one mouthful. Do not disdain the small. The whole of life - even the hard - is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. (Page 57)Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
18UndatedTime, what God first deemed holy above all else (Genesis 2:3). Thank God for the time, and very God enters that time, presence hallowing it.... I awake to I AM here. When I'm present, I meet I AM, the very presence of a present God. (page 70)Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
19Undated... be radical about grace and relentless about truth and resolute about holiness...Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
20UndatedThe mind would rather fret about the future or pine over the past — so the mind can cling to its own illusion of control. But the current moment? It cannot be controlled. And what a mind can’t control, it tends to discount. Brush past ... over. It’s the battle plan of the enemy of the soul — to keep us blind to this current moment, the one we can’t control, to keep us blind to Him, the One who controls everything.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
23UndatedHumbly let go. Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control, let go of my own way, let go of my own fears. Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy's fire. Leave the hand open and be. Be at peace. Bend the knee and be small and let God give what God chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper a surprised thanks. This is the fuel for joy's flame. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. And I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am full of His love. I can trust.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
24UndatedTrust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with planks of thanks.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
