1000 Gifts

I read this little exerpt from another blog I have been following.. I think its a wonderful Idea, and I accept the challenge too!!

I am accepting a challenge - a 1000 part challenge - and passing that challenge along to you. This is a passage that I read last night from a deeply moving blog, Holy Experience...

"A List of a Thousand Things, beginning with #1. I am daily jotting down items on my Thousand Gifts List, working, one-by-one, up to a thousand gifts. Not of gifts I want. But of gifts I have. As the moments slip down the hour glass of time, I am scratching down the gifts---just as they happen, as they arrive, as they are unwrapped---that He has given that make my life grace, the daily graces that He gives in an infinite number of ways, that stir me. "...windmills lazying in twilight's last breeze.... soft wool sweaters with turtle neck collars.... the faint smell of cattle and straw...." I am seeing things I have never seen before, atuned and aware of this constant, endless stream of gifts from His hand. I am one waking from slumber....from the stupor of indifference and ignorance. I have sight, fresh and keen---the world is new and full of His gifts. Too often I miss Him, oblivious, blind. I don't see all the good things that He is giving me, gracing me with, brushing my life with. True, He is everywhere, always. But maybe, before The Gift List, I thought of Him as further off, not so close. When I started to see all the things that I love bestowed upon me, I started to see Him as near, present, everywhere, showering me with good things. Seeing the things I love all around me gives me eyes to see that I am loved, that He loves me."


Not each and every one of them is necessarily spiritual. These are just two of her "gifts" mentioned in her blog:
860. Leaning into the small of his back as we ride fields, wind in our hair;
868. Cherries ripening out in the orchard
Although, as you go, you'll find that each and every one, no matter what they are, really and truly are spiritual. (James 1:17 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.)

~~~~ Sunday September 14

Today I woke to the roar of the wind outside, limbs hitting our roof, and the pouring rain pounding against the windows... I realized above the roar of the wind that the house itself was quiet and dark, no radio playing in Brandons room, No TV in the family room, that I know had been on earlier.. and no lights anywhere.. funny how quiet the house is with no electricity, even in a windstorm! My yard was cluttered with limbs blown from their perches in the beautiful trees of my front yard.
My first thoughts upon looking out were "oh lord, I have not seen wind like this in years, the trees were bowing down before God.. pushed to their limits by the verocity of the leftovers of Hurricane IKE. Here in Illinois, hundreds of miles from Texas, Ike was still taking its toll on Nature. How powerful the winds that blow from the heavens.. 61 miles a hour winds tore through my town. Flooding was evident everywhere in the area, being the cause of two more deaths we can attribute to IKE... levies broke, water flooded homes, people had to be rescued, and we sit how far from Houston????? Amazing....
I love storms.. watching the storm clouds roll in, the light show the lighting provides, the rolling sound of thunder.. I remember being so scared of storms when I was a child.. and now I love them.. I am just thankful that all we had was a taste of Ike, and not the power of that Hurricane as it hit the Texas shores.. I cant imagine.

So for today I thank God for these Gifts...
1. My children, who were all three safe and tucked in bed when these winds came through.

2. The Love I have for my kids, and the love they have for me...

3. The beauty of the sky as clouds rolled across it today, bringing purple clouds to the evening sky.




4. The sight of 400 American Flags flying at Southwestern Illinois College
for their Healing Field, the air was crisp and damp, but the flags flew high, in honor of our heroes in the military and abused children. There is just something beautiful about the american flag flowing in the breeze.

5. The wonderful taste of this cup of hot tea, I am enjoying at the moment.. Thank God for Tea!

6. Wonderful blogs that give me inspiration!



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