01UndatedEucharisteo, remembering with thanks, this is the bread. We take the moments as bread and give thanks and the thanks itself becomes bread. The thanks itself nourishes. Thanks feeds our trust...Manna with thanks, eat the mystery of the moment with trust, and am nourished another day - or refuse it... and die. Jesus calls us to surrender and there's nothing like releasing fears and falling into peace. This is what I have always wanted and never knew: this utter trust, this enlivening fall of surrender into the safe hands. There is no joy without trust! Page 158Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
02UndatedI glance back in the mirror to the concrete bridge, the one I've boldly driven straight across without second thought, and I see truth reflecting back at me: Every time fear freezes and worry writhes, every time I surrender to stress, aren't I advertising the unreliability of God? That I really don't believe? But if I'm grateful to the Bridge Builder for the crossing of a million strong bridges, thankful for a million faithful moments, my life speaks my beliefs and I trust Him again.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
03UndatedWhen bridges seem to give way, we fall into Christ's safe arms, true bridge, and not into hopelessness. It is safe to trust! We can be too weak to go on because His strength is made perfect in utter brokenness and nail-pierced hands help up. It is safe to trust! We can give thanks in everything because there's a good God leading, working all things into good. It is safe to trust! The million bridges behind us may seem flattened to the earthly eye, but all bridges ultimately hold, fastened by nails. It is safe to trust.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
04UndatedLosses do that. One life-loss can infect the whole of a life. Like a rash that wears through our days, our sight becomes peppered with black voids. Now everywhere we look, we only see all that isn’t: holes, lack, deficiency.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
06UndatedTo get where you want to go, the first question you always have to answer is Where am I? ... We only find out where we are when we find out where He is. We only find ourselves... when we find Him.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
08UndatedThat which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
09UndatedRejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering the converse does. The brave who focus and all things good and all things beautiful to give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agent to bring the fullest night to all the world.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
10UndatedWith memories of gravestones, of combing fingers through tangled hair, I wonder too ... If the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, and our own emptiness, might actually become places to see.To see through to God.That which tears open our souls, those holes which splatter sight, they actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart aching beauty beyond. To him. To the god whom we endlessly crave.But how? How do we choose to allow the holes to become seeing through to collect places? How do I give up resentment for gratitude, anger for spilling joy, so focus for God communion. To fully live to fully live grace enjoy with all that is beauty internal it is possibleAnn Voskamp / quote ↗
11UndatedCould a name be any shorter? Three letters without even the flourish of an e. Ann, a trio of curves and lines.It means “full of grace”.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
12UndatedHere I can become the blessing, a little life that multiplies joy, making the larger world a better place.God can enter into me, even me, and use these hands, these feet, to be His love, a love that goes on and on and on forever, endless cycle of grace.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
13UndatedI speak the unseen into seeing and I can feel it, this steady breathing in the rhythm of grace--'give thanks (in), give thanks (out)'.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
14UndatedWe 'have' all received on grace after another, but we only recognize the glory of God in this moment 'when we wake to the one grace after another'.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
15UndatedWhen we lay the soil of our hard lives opened the rain of grace and let Joy permeate 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? The clouds open when we mouth thanks. p. 58Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
16UndatedThat is what a shadow is, and empty space, a hole in the light. Evil is this - a hole in the goodness of God.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
17UndatedDo I really smother my own joy because I believe that anger achieves more than love?Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
19UndatedThe parent must always self-parent first, self-preach before child-teach, because who can bring peace unless they’ve held their own peace?Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
20UndatedHow can I help this son of mine see when I can't see? The parent must always self-parent first, self-preach before child-teach, because who can bring peace unless they've held their own peace?Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
21UndatedOur fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren’t satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
23UndatedAnd it's the 'Word of God' that turns the rocks in the mouth to loaves on the tongue. That fills our emptiness with the true and real good, 'that makes the eyes see', the body full of light.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
24UndatedI wear the lens of the Word and all the world transfigures into the Beauty of Christ and 'everything is eucharisteo'.Ann Voskamp / quote ↗
