One Thousand Gifts

In January, my friend Johanna gave me the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. I kept seeing it pop up as a recommendation on Amazon and best seller lists so it was on my list of books to read. However, based on the whimsical picture of a bird's nest with beautiful blue eggs gracing the cover, I mistakenly thought it was going to be a nice, easy novel that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Wrong. This was a pretty deep book that deals with things like, "why does a loving God let bad things happen?". After reading it, I immediately wanted to try and summarize in a logical way, what she said in such a beautiful, artistic way. In other words, I wanted to strip the book of all it's beauty in order to make it sink in for me.

She gets right in to it by chapter 2 where she states her major thesis - Joy is the goal of the fullest life and Thanksgiving is the key to joy. Her reasoning is that failure to be Thankful (which I call pride) is what caused the fall and is what hinders our full salvation. Additionally, Thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance of whatever He gives.

In chapter 3 she introduces the reason for the name of the book...the challenge she gave herself to keep a journal of naming 1,000 things she is thankful for. She described the importance the Bible places on naming something which all started when God charged Adam with naming all the animals. I loved this quote on pg 52:
"Now, in the Bible a name...reveals the very essence of a thing, or rather its essence as God's gift...To name a thing is to manifest the meaning and value God gave it, to know it as coming from God and to know its place and function within the cosmos created by God. To name a thing, in other words, is to bless God for it and in it."
I know this wasn't her point, but I thought of how perfectly this describes the comfort that comes from naming a child who never had the chance of life outside the womb. To name something is to become emotionally attached to it. I also thought of how my mom was born 3 months early in Egypt with little chance of survival. Her parents carefully nursed her day and night at home, but it wasn't until she was 3 months old and likely to survive that they got her a birth certificate and gave her an official name.

Why did she choose 1,000 gifts to be thankful for? Because, "practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation". And after she wrote her 1,000th gift, she made this conclusion, "daily discipline is the door to full freedom, and the discipline to count to 1,000 gave way to the freedom of wonder".

Chapter 4 is where she moves beyond the beautiful things of life that are easy to be thankful for and begins to question what we should do with the ugly. She quotes Job 2:10, ...Should I accept good from you, and not trouble? and concludes that you can't separate the "grace moments (good)" from the "curse moments (bad)" because God transfigures all the world. "Darkness transfigures into light, bad transfigures into good, grief transfigures into grace, empty transfigures into full. God wastes nothing and 'makes everything work out according to his plan' (Ephesians 1:11)".

The next couple of chapters she talks about the ups and downs of this new way of living. Slowly, she has learned how "not be[ing] so reactionary while inserting verbal gratitude into stressful situations is almost like being healed of mental blindness". There are rough times, when "the Lord has to break us down at the strongest part of our self-life before He can have His own way of blessing with us". And she concludes that the secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt He is. This reminded me of Hebrews 11:6, "for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him".

Next, she winds herself into the discovery that Thankfulness in "curse moments" requires trust and therefore we can't be filled with true joy until we have learned how to trust God. "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him" (Romans 15:13) I loved this quote, "If authentic, saving belief is the act of trusting, then to choose stress is an act of disbelief...atheism". She also makes the observation that Thanks is what builds trust. So it's a wonderful cycle of trust generating Thanksgiving which generates more trust.

She gets a little strange in the last chapter entitled "The Joy of Intimacy", but she has an epiphany that I found interesting while visiting an old church in Paris. The ancient steps to God-consummation were purgation, illumination and union. At the time I read this, I was doing a bible study by Beth Moore called Living Beyond Yourself where she describes our need for the daily process of pouring out, pouring in and pouring forth. I think they are saying the same thing and it is this, we must constantly be repeating the cycle of emptying our hearts of the self-will and pride that consume us, allowing the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with grace and joy and finally, pouring forth that grace and joy upon others. As a side note, that is why I enjoy the order of worship of more "reformed" churches. They embrace these steps throughout the worship service.

I have a terrible memory and unless I can distill this further into one sentence, the odds of remembering it are pretty low. So here goes. Humility -> Grace -> Trust -> Thanksgiving -> Joy That can't be so hard, right?

I think her practical application of journaling what you are thankful for is a very good one...one I have yet to start.

The Last 5 Months

A lot has happened since my last post in November:
- Thanksgiving in Florida with my family (including Scott and Ann and kids from the Dominican Republic)
- Drive from Florida to Texas with my Dad (December 1st)
- Stay in Texas for about a week (Brad at his brother Steve's, Ella and I with my family in Dallas)
- Drive to Arizona, stay at Brad's parent's house until the end of December
- Drive with Brad's sister, Elizabeth to Sandpoint, Idaho
- Live in a furnished rental two houses down from the house we rented the first time we moved there in January 2008
- Brad starts working full-time for Quest again
- Jenny flies to Texas for her brother, Clayton's wedding January 14th
- Ella's third birthday on February 3rd
- Drive back to Phoenix March 1
- Move back into our old house in Gilbert
- Jenny and Ella go to Texas to see the newest addition to the family, Macklin Jedediah Scott Geer

We now spend our days in a role reversal. Brad works from home and I go into work a couple of days a week. We are planning on staying in Phoenix until the end of May when we'll rent this house out again and go back Sandpoint and move back into our house there.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Here's the pictures to prove it.



Ella and her cousin Adeline


Last day in Florida


Florida to Texas: This is the house my parents were living in when I was born (Nacadoches, TX)


Dinner with my Grandparents in Texas


Desert drive near Tucson





The view from our rental in Sandpoint


Yeah for being back in Sandpoint with old (young) friends


It was great getting to hang out with Uncle Mike again in Sandpoint


Ella's birthday party was a car theme and we picked up some plastic lawn edging to use as race track for wooden cars the kids painted. We all had a good time playing with the tracks at home the week before the party. I would highly recommend this cheap way to build a lot of track.


Birthday lunch at the Pie Hut


It's so nice being back in the warm Phoenix sunshine


Scott and Ann's latest baby, Macklin




Ella's cousin, Ezra loved chasing the vacuum


Her cousin Darton had a pirate birthday party


Ann made a cool treasure map for the kids to find coins along the way to the final treasure


While in Texas we had a photographer, Milano Photography come take pictures of all 6 grandkids
























And finally, we celebrated Easter with Brad's family here in Phoenix. Ella wore the first smocked dress my mom made for me.




We also made a modified version of a Pinterest tomb. We wrapped "Jesus" in linens and laid him in the tomb, then when she woke up on Sunday morning, the tomb was empty!

Sea World, A.K.A. Stroller Drama

Since Brad's sister Sarah is  here, we wanted to do something fun and take advantage of all the attractions so close in Orlando. We decided to go to Sea World for the weekend.

We fed the dolphins





Ella loved the "Aunt Claire's"


Then we decided to go to the Shamu show.



That's when everything went south. When we came out of the show our stroller was no where to be found. We had left it in the stroller parking area with the other 1,000's of strollers. I was pretty bummed since it was by far my favorite of the 6 strollers I've bought and sold looking for the perfect one (gotta love craigslist). We wandered around for about 45 minutes as we made our way toward guest services to report it stolen. I kept my eyes out hoping I would happen to see it and sure enough, I saw a girl walking by with it. I ran up to her and asked her where she got it.  She made up some story about buying it when her son was born at Babies R Us.  I told her mine had just been stolen and it looked just like mine.  She had taken all my stuff out of it but there were things on it that made me confident it was mine. She started getting really nervous, yelling at her kid and making up a bunch of stories that didn't make sense. We asked her if she would just stand still long enough so we could get security to help us sort it out. She just kept walking and said she really needed to pee and would we just stop following her and let her go to the bathroom. We said sure and followed her to the bathrooms. She took the stroller with her because she had her kid in there and all her bags on it. Brad sent me off to look for security while she was in there. About 15 minutes I came back and she had not come out. I went in to look for her and sure enough there was another exit that she had gone out. By the time we got security to notify the front gate she was long gone.

I was pretty bummed, but we learned some valuable lessons.  1. Don't take a nice stroller to Sea World and if you do, lock it up. 2. Write your name on anything valuable like that.  If I would have had my name written on it, I could have taken it from her right away.

Guest services was nice and gave us some VIP seat to the dolphin show. I have to say, it was much better than the Shamu show which was pretty boring.

Iowa, Phoenix, California

Way back in August we took a trip to Iowa for Brad's grandma's memorial service.



We spent the weekend listening to his mom and grandpa reminisce about growing up in Sioux City and visiting all the places they lived and worked. This used to be the hardware store that his grandpa owned.





This was a diner across the street where they would have lunch


It was nice to meet lots of Brad's family


Ella found a playground she enjoyed


After Iowa, Brad headed home and Ella and I went to Phoenix for work.  The next weekend we took a little trip to LA to see Claire and baby Will.


We actually saw Brad at a bluegrass festival there since he had flown to LA for the weekend for work.

Florida in Black and White

Wow, it's been a long time! Part of the problem is that I haven't been taking as many pictures and the other problem is lack of time. I like the idea of taking pictures with my film camera, but in reality it's kind of a pain to make sure I have film, develop it and then get it scanned in. I do like the way they turn out though. And it's a feeling of accomplishment to develop the pictures yourself. It still amazes me that throwing a bunch of chemicals in a tube with film can make the images appear.

Anyway, enough rambling. We did another two week trip at the end of August. I'll write about that in another post, but here's the catch-up photos before that. Before Elizabeth left we went to St. Augustine, Florida to see the oldest town in America. It was a really cool town, with a neat old fort. It made me think that maybe Florida is not that bad after all.








 Here's a picture I snapped of Ella waking up the other day

She is still so much fun (not that I'm surprised). She likes to dance around her room to Antsylvannia and Sic Em On A Chicken, loves to snuggle and still carries stuff with her everywhere she goes.