1,000 Gifts

Years ago I read Ann Voskamp's book, 1,000 Gifts, and I took the challenge. I started my daily gratitude list with the goal of getting to a thousand. Starting every day with gratitude, and then living life with your eyes wide open to finding God's gifts all around you, will change your life. It definitely changed mine. In fact, when I reached a thousand, I kept going. And I don't ever plan to stop. I did stop numbering, but I never stopped looking and recording daily the gifts that God gives me. 

Every day we rise, we have another day to enjoy God and all of his gifts. All the varieties of animals, birds, plants, flowers, songs, Scriptures, and people that he puts in our lives. Another day to enjoy a hope, a dream, or a memory. A feeling of success. To taste delicious foods and thank God for our sense of taste and the variety of flavors available to us. Here are just a few things we can always find to be thankful for: 

Gifts from God that we can always be thankful for:

• Relationships

• Food

• Health or healing

• Employment

• Home

• Education

• Achievements/breakthroughs

• Reliable utilities (power, heat, lights, clean water)

• Natural beauty

• Spiritual gifts or growth

• God’s strength, peace, or provision

• My 5 senses

• Opportunities or experiences

• Technology

• Good surprises

• Talents/skills

So around late January or early February, I decided to challenge my new students to create a new list of 1,000 gifts with me. These are nine and eleven-year-olds. The task seemed a little daunting to them, but I told them that between all of us, I believed we could do it.

Today they reached 1,000. I was so proud of them. And you know what? We just kept on going. I typed them all out for them so they can take their list home with them for the summer, and I hope that the daily practice instilled a habit in them of always looking for signs of God's love for us, signs that I reminded them today just point to HIM. Signs that remind them how much God does to show us that He loves us because He wants a relationship with us.

A Thousand Hallelujah's

(A song that complements their accomplishment well)

I'm missing a pic of the 700's here.