The Weary World Rejoices

It's the Christmas season!  Often during Advent, I write something along the lines of "I now interrupt your busy schedule of parties and shopping and cookie exchanges to say REMEMBER THE DARKNESS" - see, e.g., An Advent Reflection and Already, Not Yet.  (I'm being kind of silly with this intro, but if any of you are struggling with the darkness of this year and how to mesh that with Christmas season, those might actually be better posts for you than this one.)  

But this year, with darkness being a much harder thing to miss, I think it's a great year to focus on the wonder of the season.  I deeply feel the line "A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices" - because, like many of you, I'm feeling weary - and I want to think about how and why we're rejoicing (isn't a little rejoicing much needed in 2020?).  Here are some of the things I'm thinking about:

1.  Beauty all around - I tend to be a very functional and minimalist decorator, but I LOVE when our Christmas tree goes up, and I love decorating it with special ornaments that bring back memories.  I love that Kenny puts up outdoor Christmas decorations, and I love driving around town and seeing more lights go up every day.  I love that it's the time of year where you're encouraged to make the rich, flavorful appetizers and desserts (this year it might be just for your household - do it anyway!!) and burn fragrant candles.  Most of all, I love Christmas music, and I love how you can hear it playing everywhere from gas stations to church choirs.  Extravagant beauty that feeds all our senses abounds during this season - notice it, let it bring joy.  

2.  The Christmas story - There are so many miraculous pieces to this story.  A barren older woman becomes pregnant with the child who will be the messenger.  A virgin birth.  Angels make multiple appearances.  Everyone from shepherds to wise men come to visit this baby (the International Epic party that Zoey was hoping for :).  There's a mega star to guide the way.  Can you imagine being a part of any of this??

3.  The values emphasized at Christmas:  In this world where we've gotten so good at screaming at each other about everything, what a wonder that there is a season where the following virtues are celebrated:  Light.  Hope.  Peace.  Joy.  Love.  Goodwill towards Men.  New Life.   It's beautiful!!

4.  The main event - All of the above is great, but it's really just sign posts leading us to the biggest thing we celebrate at Christmas:  God came to earth as a human child, and He did it to save us all.  THIS is the place from which all the rest of the beauty flows.  And in this year of struggle, we are in such a good place to see our need for the hope that Christmas brings.

Merry Christmas to you all!  Tell me how you're seeing beauty in this Advent and Christmas season!

Thankfulness in 2020

I traditionally write a gratitude blog in November, but, not gonna lie, I'm really struggling to do it this year.  A quick scroll through any news site, any social media feed, or any lived experience of the year 2020 will give you ample reason to question doing the grateful thing this year.  But that is exactly, exactly, when we (and I'm putting myself at the top of that list) MOST need to work through the discipline of gratitude.

I read a book on gratitude, since it's not coming very naturally this year.  The book is called "Choosing Gratitude: Your Journey to Joy" by Nancy Leigh DeMoss, and I would highly recommend it.  This one is great for 2020 because it makes a point of observing throughout that gratitude is not just for when you're happy and everything's going your way - it's for the hard times, too.  This blog is not a full review or summary of the book, but I want to attribute it because DeMoss really helped shift my perspective and spark these thoughts.  Okay, so, gratitude in 2020...

Why is gratitude important during hard times?

1.  I'm guessing for many of us, anxiety has been a heightened feature of 2020 (see, e.g., global pandemic and presidential election).  I'm a seasoned worrier, waaaay before 2020 (before parenting, even, but that kicked it into a much higher gear :).  One of the best ways to address anxiety is through thankfulness.  

In Philippians (verse pictured below), the equation is Pray + Gratitude = Peace.  You give your worries over to God, remember all the things you have to be thankful for, and receive the peace that passes understanding.  What a beautiful, sought after gift!  (Especially for us Enneagram 9s...)

2.  Another thing that's prominent in my mind and heart when times are tough is complaints.  I'm not saying that there's not a time and place for getting things off your chest, but at some point, your whole life perspective parks itself mostly in complaint or mostly in gratitude.  While it takes some work to pivot away from complaints and find gratitude in hard times, it's definitely a more pleasant place to dwell.

What does gratitude look like in a year like this?

• Remembering the affirmative good things in your life, as specifically as possible - especially in terms of people.  Through 2020, through times when Josh had lots of hospitalizations - it's your family that walks through it with you, the people that think to bring you food, to send a text, to make the phone call, to make the (positive) Facebook comment - that keep you going.  Also, whatever other things are helping you get through:  songs, books, adult coloring books?, a stunning sunset, your pet, and the list goes on...
• Spiritual blessings, which will always hold even through the hardest of times (and will often mean the most during these times):  things like God's love, mercy, and faithfulness.  It's also helpful to remember the verses promising that trials can help strengthen our endurance, character, and hope. (See Romans 5.) 
• Adjusting perspective: yesterday I was feeling a bit annoyed to be picking up take-out, in a mask, yet again, rather than going out to a restaurant - but WHAT A THING that restaurants prepare food for us; that in Reno, NV, we can be ordering food from many different parts of the world (birria tacos was our food of choice yesterday); that we have a warm house where we can enjoy this food safely; and that we have the money to purchase this food.  When you think through all of these things, and think about how much harder and/or a bummer it would be if any one of these things wasn't true, it's hard not to be grateful.

What is it not?

Gratitude should never involve a denial of reality.  So, for example, it doesn't mean:

• Pretending to be okay when you're not.
• Forgoing laments when you experience real sadness
• Not speaking up on behalf of the marginalized 

It doesn't mean you should deny, ignore, or repress the hard parts of life, on behalf of yourself or others.  It means that, even as you walk through the hard times (maybe especially as you walk through the hard times?), it helps to remember all you have to be thankful for.

What about having a sense of humor?

This is great!  Humor is also a great way to adjust perspective, and it's one more thing to be thankful for.  The Nevada memes got me through election week.  Here's my favorite 2020 meme I've seen this week, for which I'm grateful:

I would love to hear some things you're grateful for, friends!   Sending love to you in this weird, memorable, 2020 Thanksgiving month.   

Reflections on Psalm 42

Hi all! Our church put together a devotional book based on the Psalms for encouragement during

the time of corona, so I'm sharing mine below (starts with the Psalm, reflection follows):

PSALM 42 (ESV)

1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,

so pants my soul for you, O God.

2  My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.

When shall I come and appear before God?

3  My tears have been my food

day and night,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

4  These things I remember,

as I pour out my soul:

how I would go with the throng

and lead them in procession to the house of God

with glad shouts and songs of praise,

ca multitude keeping festival.

5  Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation 6 and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;

therefore I remember you

from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,

from Mount Mizar.

7  Deep calls to deep

at the roar of your waterfalls;

all your breakers and your waves

have gone over me.

8  By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,

and at night his song is with me,

a prayer to the God of my life.

9  I say to God, my rock:

“Why have you forgotten me?

Why do I go mourning

because of the oppression of the enemy?”

10  As with a deadly wound in my bones,

my adversaries taunt me,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

11  Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation and my God.

REFLECTION:

This psalm expresses weariness: how long is this trial going to last?  It feels like there’s no end in

sight.  The psalmist is feeling desperate for God, and feeling intensely sad.  Interestingly, the

psalmist is feeling downcast and far from God in part because his circumstances have placed

him far from the sanctuary, so he can’t physically go to the house of God and worship corporately

with God’s people.  All of this -- a trial that’s dragging on, a feeling of weariness and discouragement,

an inability to physically gather with God’s people -- sounds pretty familiar during this season of

social distancing, doesn’t it?

This psalm is instructive and encouraging to me for two reasons:

First, the psalmist shows us that it’s okay to come to God with our hard emotions.  We can turn to

Him in our despair, discouragement, and exhaustion.  Our prayers can fluctuate from despair (v. 3)

to hope (v. 5) back to sadness (v. 9) back to hope (v. 11).  God knows we are feeling this way, and

He knows this is when we most need Him.  Furthermore, turning to God even with these hard

emotions is an act of faith - it shows that you believe He’s there, He’s listening, He’s in control,

and that He cares to hear the desperate pleas of your heart.

Second, it demonstrates what to do when you’re feeling down.  Start by sharing these feelings with

God.  Then, talk to yourself - remind yourself what God has done.  Remind yourself that God is

your hope and salvation.  Remind yourself how He has delivered you and others in your community

from hard times before.  Remind yourself how He has delivered His people throughout history,

as written in the Bible.  Remind yourself that you will again praise God, your hope and salvation. 

It’s okay if you don’t get to a place of perfect emotional peace and hope at the end of the prayer,

but following this process over and over is the road back towards joy and praise.  

PRAYER:

Lord, these last few months have been difficult.  Thank you that we can turn to You honestly with

all our emotions.  Please help us to remember all that You have done for us.  Thank you for being

our hope and our salvation, and please bring us to a place of praise.  

Liturgy of the Ordinary

I've been thinking about how to make my Christian faith a more organic, integrated part of my day to day life.  I'm doing okay on things like regular church attendance and regular quiet times, but even if those things are done with 100% faithfulness, they still just make up a small fraction of time in my week.  If my faith is the most important thing to me, it deserves more time and attention.  But how does that work out practically, with the demands of life?  With jobs and kids and household chores, not to mention the daily Facebook scrolling?  It already feels like a fight to carve out the fraction of time that's devoted to God.

I was looking for ideas along the ideas of Brother Lawrence's wonderful classic "The Practice of the Presence of God".  His idea is that you DO continue to go about your life - you peel potatoes, you wash dishes - and you stay in community with God at the same time.  I love this idea, and I was eager to find a book that fleshed out this idea as applied to modern life.  I found this book, and remarkably, it is also thoughtful, well written, funny, and steeped in good theology.  (And it will make you want to become an Anglican!  I am not currently Anglican, but I have a lot of love and respect for Anglicans.)  The book is called "Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life" by Tish Harrison Warren.

Warren takes eleven moments out of an ordinary day - things like brushing your teeth, losing your keys, checking email - and combines them with eleven spiritual practices in Christian life.  This sounds gimmicky, and in the wrong hands it certainly could be, but in this book it is SO well done.  (It's worth noting that The Gospel Coalition and Sarah Bessey both agree with my enthusiastic endorsement, so this book has a broad range of support in the Christian community.)  The idea is that there are reminders of God working in the world and working his redemption in us constantly, every day, in the most mundane moments, and she illuminates some of the ways we can watch for this and be blessed (or be challenged to grow) as we go about our lives.

Some highlights (these are just a few examples, as every chapter had great stuff; and these just give you an idea of the content, it's her fleshing out of the ideas that makes this book special):

• Losing your keys - this chapter was linked to confession, and the idea was that how you respond to the little irritations of life is a good barometer of where your heart is at.  Often we think of confession in relation to bigger things, but there are little moments every day where we lose our cool, or act selfishly, and the opportunity here is to notice this happening, and take the opportunity to confess and receive forgiveness and acceptance.  
• Calling a Friend - this chapter is linked to being in Christian community and gives a robust argument for being involved in a local church.  
• Eating Leftovers - this chapter was linked to both Communion and reading the Bible.  She talks about how you need to eat over and over, and while the vast majority of your meals will be very ordinary and forgettable, you absolutely need them to bring you life.  And that the type of food you eat can bring more or less health over time.  
• Fighting with My Husband - she links this with Passing the Peace, and writes about how the bulk of the "loving others" command in the Bible involves loving your family and closest friends well - and this is often the very hardest thing to do.  
• There is lots of value given to enjoying the pleasures of life, and sleep linked to Sabbath - I loved these ideas.

Also, she concludes her Acknowledgments section with my favorite sentence that I have ever seen and probably ever will see in an Acknowledgments section:  "And glory be to the Word, from whom any goodness in our little words flows, and by whom they will be redeemed."

This is a book I will return to again and again, and  I hope I have convinced at least a few of you to check it out.  It's that rare gem that is thoughtful and deep, but also very easy to read and applicable to real life.

Lent, Spring Cleaning, & Courage

As Easter approaches, I've been learning more about Lent.  Growing up as a (mostly non-denominational) evangelical, I never learned much about Lent.  I knew when Lent began and ended, and very occasionally I gave up something minor for the season, but I never really understood why.  Now I attend an Anglican church, and Anglicans make it a primary point to observe and reflect on each point in the church calendar.  One of the pastors at my Anglican church, Nile Gomez, described Lent as spring cleaning - a time to take inventory of things that we want to keep and things that we want to get rid of, in order to make space for God.  

That same week, one of my friends posted this similar description of Lent:  “Yet whatever else it may be, Lent should never be morose – an annual ordeal during which we begrudgingly forgo a handful of pleasures. Instead, we ought to approach Lent as an opportunity, not a requirement. After all, it is meant to be the church’s springtime, a time when, out of the darkness of sin’s winter, a repentant, empowered people emerges.” From Bread and Wine: readings for Lent and Easter 

So I've been thinking about Lent from that perspective:  as a spring cleaning.  For me, two of the major problem areas in my life are fear and pride, and these are often two sides of the same coin.  I'm fearful when any aspect of my life goes  out of my control.  I make an idol out of comfort and routine, because these things give the illusion that I'm in control (rather than God) and feed my pride.  I resist anything that threatens to break up my momentary comfort and day-to-day routine because I'm fearful about all the things I can't control in that.  Unfortunately, fear is not as easy to give up as Facebook or chocolate.  (Not that those would be easy things to give up either!)  It will be a lifelong project for me.  But to make any progress - to clear out just a little bit of the fear that clutters my heart and make just a little more room for God - would be a useful spring cleaning.  And to add more of the opposite qualities - courage & faith - would also be a helpful spring cleaning. 


This Lenten season has brought up a perfect opportunity to work on fear.  We are moving across the country in a month.  The last blog post lists all the reasons why this will be a good move for our family, and I'm very excited to live close to our friends and family in Reno.  It's the transition that makes me so nervous.  My natural first response to any big change is to fret about all the things that could go wrong, stress about all the details that need to be worked out, and just let fear consume me.  (Kenny is handling most of the details of the move, and doing a great job, so that's calming my nerves about our upcoming transition -- but the general point still holds.)  When Kenny and I discuss major changes in our lives - like moving to a new state - he has the adventurous spirit and I have the Debbie Downer spirit.  I am oriented to keeping up the status quo.  He is oriented towards thinking about how our family can live in the best possible way and actively working to get to that place.   It's not entirely bad that we're different this way - we balance each other out - but he often brings up good ideas and my immediate reaction is to throw a damp towel on the whole thing.  I would like to live with more faith that God will take care of us as we go through changes, and more courage to do hard things that will ultimately make life better rather than staying forever in the same situation because in the moment, that's always the easier choice.  That's my goal for this Lenten season - have a little more faith and a little less fear.  But that's easier said than done.  How do I get there?

1.  Bible reading/ reflection - The Bible says some version of "Do not fear" more than 100 times.  My favorite is Joshua 1:9, listed above, and it's the verse I reflect on whenever we're going through a change.  God doesn't say that we won't go through nervous-making things, but He says that He will be with us and we don't need to be afraid.  Reflecting on these promises (remembering what they are, thinking about times when you've seen them come true in your own life and the lives of others) and praying for help with unbelief is by far the best way to defeat fear.  Using the example I gave above - moving to a new state - I can reflect on the fact that we we moved to the state of Virginia four years ago with a lot more unknowns hanging over our head, and God took care of us through that transition.  


2.  In the words of Nike, "Just do it."  I took Joshua to the dentist last week, and that is a very scary thing for him.  This time, as I was lifting him into the chair, the adults in the room were telling him that he was brave.  Joshua said, "I'm not brave!  I'm scared!"  (This became his mantra throughout the 30 second examination.)  And although he clearly *was* scared, he got through the appointment and he did better than he's ever done before.  I think there's an idea that really brave (or faithful) people don't feel any fear.  Maybe for some people that's true.  But I think that courage is shown in having enough faith to take actions even when you feel fearful.  And as you take big, scary steps and survive, this makes you a little less fearful the next time you take a leap of faith.  

This post ended up being a little bit of a jumble, but I would love to hear any thoughts on how to live with less fear, or your thoughts about Lent.  Or Anglicanism.  Or the dentist.  

Resolutions

This is a post about New Year's resolutions.  It's kind of funny to be writing a post about resolutions a whole week into the new year, when some new resolutions have already been dropped, but, in the words of my former landlord, "It is what it is."  Some people don't like the idea of resolutions because they are so often dropped and because efforts towards positive change should be happening continually, not just once a year.  But for me, it's helpful to have an annual occasion to think about goal setting, or i would very easily forget to think about it at all.  Here are a few things I think about when forming resolutions:

• Keep it manageable.  I think this is the very biggest thing for making resolutions that will stick.  It's tempting to set lofty, impressive goals.  For example, last year I really wanted to get back into the habit of running, and I thought (*briefly*) about resolving to run a marathon, because  how awesome would it be to post that finish line picture on Facebook?  But starting from a routine where I was running 0 miles per week, that was an unrealistic goal.  I needed something much more modest, and much less Facebook worthy, if I actually wanted to accomplish it.  
• Think of broad categories in which you want to see self-improvement.  For me, 3 categories that I want to work on almost every year are health and fitness, spirituality, and learning.  So I try to choose a resolution in each category to keep things well rounded and avoid burn out in any one area.  
• Keep it specific and measurable.  This means saying exactly what you're going to do and how often you're going to do it.  So, instead of saying "eat healthy" or even "eat more vegetables", I would say "eat a salad containing 4 types of vegetables, 5 times per week".  
• Think about the flow of your year and plan accordingly.  There are some times of year where it's much harder to get things done, and other times where you have extra time and you can make up lost ground.  For our family, January tends to be an unusual month - we are traveling and out of routine, the kids are often sick, sometimes there are snow days - so I am almost always behind on resolutions by the end of the month and it can be very tempting to quit.  But if I go into it knowing that January is a hard month and I'm likely to be behind at first but will be able to catch up in the next several months, then it's not so discouraging.  The corresponding point is that when I get to months where I have extra time and energy, I have to use those well to make the whole thing work.  

And without further pontificating, here are my resolutions & results from 2014 and my resolutions for 2015:

2014:

1) Goal:  Run 100 times in the year.
 Result:  It was slow and painful going at first, but I accomplished this goal by September and managed to turn running back into a normal part of my routine.

2) Goal:  Read through the Bible.
Result:  This one also proceeded in fits and starts - but I got it done (finishing on Dec. 31 around 5 pm) and turned Bible reading back into a regular habit, which I had not done well while the kids were infants.

3) Goal:  Read War and Peace.
Result:  This was a fail.  I chose to try this book because it's supposed to be the greatest novel ever written, and I slogged through 200 painful pages (out of 1000) - but I just couldn't keep going.  This book was not for me.

2015 resolutions:

1) Work on Strength training by completing the pictured program at least once per day, 3 times per week.

2) Use the Book of Common Prayer at least 5 times per week.  I'm not even exactly sure how to use this book, so this will be a pretty experimental thing and I might follow up with another blog post later in the year about why I made this resolution and how it's going.

3) Take a course through Coursera - There are lots of good, free college courses available online, and this year I would like to complete one.  My first choice is to take something related to Joshua (on genetics or child development), but if those aren't available, then I will probably do something in humanities (hopefully related to literature).  If any of you have done Coursera and have specific recommendations, please send them.

I would love to hear your resolutions, or your best tips on making lasting resolutions.  Cheers to 2015!

An Advent Reflection

I've been thinking a lot about Advent this holiday season, and about how experiencing darkness and suffering best prepares you for the hope of Jesus coming.  Don't get me wrong - I enjoy the festivity of the holiday season, including the "frivolous" stuff.  I like driving around looking at Christmas lights, I like when the Christmas drinks appear on the Starbucks menu, I like blasting any Christmas song sung by Mariah Carey, I like a good white elephant Christmas exchange, and I like any excuse to eat excessive amounts of spinach artichoke dip.

But I think it's much more natural to feel sadness this time of year, with the days getting colder and darker.  For people who have lost loved ones or who struggle with depression or who have just had a hard year, the holidays can be an especially tough time.  Others are feeling despair because of the violence and injustice they see in the world.  Others feel loneliness as they don't have dozens of parties to attend and presents to buy.  For me, autumn is a reminder of the time of year when Joshua was born, and it often seems to bring new surgeries or worries or diagnoses - so for me personally, it always seems like a hard and sad time of year.  All these parties and holly jolly music and everyone talking about how it's the most wonderful time of the year (and also the busiest!) can feel very far removed from your reality if you are struggling.

The good news is:  sad feelings are kind of perfect for Advent.  I think those who are feeling sadness this time of year have a much better vantage point from which to understand and appreciate and deeply long for a hope that comes from outside of this dark and broken world.  As I struggle with some of Joshua's stuff, that is beyond what I can help with and beyond what doctors can fix, I feel the need for something outside of this world to come in and bring healing.  I appreciate the hope that came into the world when Jesus was born, and I understand the urgency of the cry, "Come, Lord Jesus."

When everything is comfortable and good...when you don't feel the sadness in your own life or in the world at large...then it can be harder to remember the great hope we receive at Christmas.  So if you're struggling this month, I hope this is an encouragement.  One of the greatest Christmas hymns demonstrates the specific hope that comes to those who know their need (here is just one verse, but the whole song is really geared this way):

O Come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

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p.s.  Here are a couple good recent articles on Advent:

• What Church History Taught me about Christmas
• Weeping with the Mothers of Bethlehem

My Second Annual Thankfulness Post

It's Thanksgiving week, which makes it a great time to write a post about thankfulness.  Most of the ideas in this post are suggested by a very interesting Ann Voskamp book that I just read, thanks (pun intended) to the long-distance book club I'm in with my mom and my sister.  (I would recommend this book, as Voskamp is intelligent and spiritually insightful, but with the warning that you will have to get past her HUGELY DISTRACTING writing style.)  Voskamp's thesis is that thankfulness is the key ingredient when it comes to experiencing joy and knowing intimacy with God.  Here are some things her book made me think about:

• Be thankful for the specific, sensory gifts all around you: So often when we think of the things we are thankful for, we only think of things that are big (like our house), or very general (like good health), or most meaningful (like our family).  These are all great things to be thankful for, but they leave out lots of what moment-to-moment life consists of and they don't re-orient us towards an ongoing attitude of thankfulness.  Voskamp encourages us to be really specific in our thankfulness and to notice the small gifts that are around us all the time, and one good way to do this is to notice all the beautiful things that we perceive through our five senses.  So in the morning, I might be thankful for the smell of fresh coffee brewing, the feel of warm socks on my feet, the sound of a bird chirping out the window, the sight of the sun rising, and the taste of sweet syrup on a pumpkin pancake.  This all sounds a little cheesy, but if you make an ongoing effort to really pay attention to these things and to understand them as gifts from God that make your life more beautiful and enjoyable, it really does make a difference.  
• Thankfulness in ordinary tasks.  Voskamp encourages us to connect the mundane tasks of our life to an attitude of thankfulness, and again to be really specific about it.   Examples would look like this:  I'm grateful to be scrubbing out this frying pan because it means i have food to eat; I'm grateful to be out grocery shopping, buying these overpriced applesauce squeezes because it reminds me that Joshua is eating by mouth; I'm grateful to be responding to cries in the middle of the night because it means I have these sweet children and I was given the job to comfort them when they are hurting.  Again, it sounds a little hokey when you read about it, but life is so much about perspective, and this is a helpful way to reorient towards a perspective of thankfulness.
• Be thankful in the midst of trials and suffering.  This is the most difficult one to describe, but it is undoubtedly one of the marks of a mature Christian and a truly grateful person.  Here are two things it does not look like:  1)  "It could be so much worse" (feeling grateful that your life is not as bad as the worst possible scenario), and 2) the gratitude is focused on the good things that you can see coming out of your suffering.  I'm not saying either of these things, particularly the second one, is a wrong way to think...but the end goal is to learn how to be grateful in the midst of suffering, without comparing your situation to others and without needing to see obvious good things coming from the suffering.  I think this article gets at it a little bit.  Another part of it is that trials and suffering help us remember that our hope is not in this world...as a popular K-Love song puts it, "What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy?"  There is certainly some mystery in this type of thankfulness (how to get there, what it looks like), and I would welcome any commenters who can elaborate on this point.  

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This last thing is not from the Voskamp book, but it's about thankfulness, so I'm tacking it on:

I read Ecclesiastes recently, at the same time as reading the Voskamp book, and for the first time noticed how much Ecclesiastes emphasizes thankfulness.  At different times when I've read Ecclesiastes, I've thought it was confusing, depressing, social-justicey, and keeping it real, but this time the verses on thankfulness really stuck out.  Here's just one example (emphasis added):

"I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on mankind: 2 God gives some people wealth, possessions and honor, so that they lack nothing their hearts desire, but God does not grant them the ability to enjoy them, and strangers enjoy them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.  3 A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he."  Eccl. 6:1-3

So the two things I take away from these verses (and the others in Ecclesiastes like them) are: 

1.  Thankfulness / contentment is a gift from God.
2.  The ability to be thankful (for wealth, success, relationships, etc.) is the really important thing, not how much of the thing you have.

And with that, I am off to do some household chores, which I will attempt to complete gratefully :).  Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!  I hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend!