with 10,000 beside!

“Thank you, God, for napkin rings!”

This time it wasn’t hard. This time it floated up from a giddy heart, carbon bubbles of gratitude launching off the liquid surface and spraying my nose. It was just a napkin holder, but it was pure joy.

I had seen the colorful rings in the store a few weeks earlier while registering for my housewarming shower. Different-sized wooden orbs of hot pink, neon green, yellow and white, clustered into a ring. I imagined placing them on my new white square dishes, a splash of color to invite my guests into the new Texas house. But, I passed them up with a sigh, and pointed my scanner towards more “practical” items.

Tonight, in a moment of spontaneity, I raced back to the store, determined to find some small treasure that would cheer my evening. I spied the colorful rings in a clearance box-  99 cents a pop! I looped 10 of them over my fingers and smiled like a toddler, stifling a giggle as I hoarded my treasure.

Yes, on my way home, I thanked God for those napkin rings. They reminded me that I was a few minutes closer to being with my husband in our first home. I imagined God smiling back at me- winking even- and gently encouraging me that I was going to make it, and He was going to help Me!

Thankfulness. It’s sheer divine magic.

My mother-in-law let me in on that secret a few months ago when she gave me the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. Ann writes like a magician herself- a poetic, freestyle, sometimes Transcendental flowing of an eager hand across friendly paper. The words appear out of thin air. She writes about chickens and overalls and dishes and dirty faces and schoolbooks and quiet moments with God and exhaustion and dirt under fingernails- everything that makes life less than romantic- everything that makes life, life! She writes about soul-withering sorrow and bloody hearts- and she writes about what she discovered on the day she met Life.

“A glowing sun-orb fills an August sky the day this story begins, the day I am born, the day I begin to live.”

Though she refers to her physical life there, she reveals in later pages the secret to living her new “emptier, fuller life.”

The secret is very simple.

“Thankfulness precedes the miracle.”

I read these words a few weeks before I met Dan in Cancun. My heart was bitter, disillusioned, unhappy, and not entirely convinced of Voskamp’s words. Poets have a way of exaggerating circumstances- making the dirt of life seem somehow beautiful in its dirtiness. Well, my life tasted of dirt lately, and it was not beautiful. It tasted gross.

“How do you count on life when the hopes don’t add up?”

Now she was talking my language. For over a year I had been waiting….waiting….waiting for life to start. My hopes had been growing, but like an incorrect math problem, 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 kept equaling zero. Zero husband. Zero new home. Zero phone calls. Zero happiness. Zero. The hopes were not adding up.

“The hopes don’t have to add up. The blessings do.”

 I paused.

“Count blessings and discover Who can be counted on.”

Not what I was expecting.

The poet-magician explained. “Isn’t that what had been happening, quite unexpectedly? This living a lifestyle of intentional gratitude became an unintentional test in the trustworthiness of God- and in counting blessings I stumbled upon the way out of fear.”

Intentional gratitude. Ann had been keeping a list of things that she found each day to be grateful for. Little things- the sunlight gleaming through clean windows. The smell of clean sheets hanging on the clothesline. Count to 1,000. 1,000 gifts.

An unintentional test in the trustworthiness of God. Is that what this struggle in my heart was? Perhaps the zeros I kept coming across were merely reflections of the zero trust I was putting in God. Perhaps my unhappiness was fear- fear that God was not really looking out for my good. Fear that He was trying to trick me. Fear that He would wait until the last minute and take Dan from me. Fear that He would give me all these beautiful dreams and then tell me it was all a joke- a massive test to see if I was holy enough.

I decided that perhaps I needed to put the poet on trial. I would take her words to court and see if the evidence weighed in her favor. I would consider her guilty until proven innocent.

6 o’clock.

My first day back after Cancun, and my baby niece woke me up at 6 o’clock.

Thanksgiving precedes the miracle.

Now was my first court session.

I picked up the tearful bundle and wrapped her under the covers next to me. As I fed her her bottle, I took a deep breath and prayed, “Thank you God for this precious life warm and needy next to me. My niece.”

A faint smile as I stroked her cheek.

Thanksgiving precedes the miracle.

I glanced through the blinds at a new day.

Blue sky.

“Thank you, God, for blue sky…. I love summer.”

A smile. A real one. A whole one.

A giggle!

That was it! I laughed at myself for being so vulnerable! I had let my guard down, and the poet had been acquitted and left the bench before I noticed her absence. She was right! Thanksgiving DID precede the miracle. My aching heart could breathe. I was going to make it!

“Isn’t it here? The wonder? Why do I spend so much of my living hours struggling to see it? Do we truly stumble so blind that we must be affronted with blinding magnificence for our blurry soul-sight to recognize grandeur? The very same surging magnificence that cascades over our every day here. Who has time or eyes to notice? All my eyes can seem to fixate on are the splatters of disappointment across here and me.”

Thanksgiving in little things… thanksgiving in all things! The little things become the blinding magnificence! And in the blinding magnificence, true vision is restored.

Just the other night, I lay in bed “fixating on the splatters of disappointment” when I heard the whisper.

Thanksgiving precedes the miracle.

Dutifully, I began.

“Thank you, God, for the hum of the air conditioner that quiets my restless mind.”

“Thank you, God, for the soft covers that catch my tears.”

“Thank you God….”

…and a tangible peace flooded my body. A delicious drowsiness overcame my mind and with my last waking thought I noted once again that the miracle had happened.

I don’t know if I’m ready, yet, to say that I’m thankful for this deployment. I’m certainly thankful for things that it’s brought- like a chance to minister to others in similar circumstances, like my husband’s dreams being fulfilled, like an extra year to watch my baby sister grow up, like an opportunity to learn how to show “creative love” to my far-away man. But, am I thankful for this deployment?

Hmmmm…

I read on as Ann quotes Henry Beecher Ward: “Pride slays thanksgiving…A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.” Ann asks with me, “Dare I ask what I think I deserve? A life of material comfort? A life free of all trials, all hardship, all suffering? A life with no discomfort, no inconveniences? Are there times that a sense of entitlement- expectations- is what inflates self, detonates anger, offends God, extinguishes joy? And what do I really deserve? Thankfully, God never gives what is deserved, but instead, God graciously, passionately offers gifts, our bodies, our time, our very lives. God does not give rights but imparts responsibilities-- response-abilites—inviting us to respond to His love-gifts. And I know and can feel it tight: I’m refusing it. Proudly refusing to accept this moment, dismissing it as no gift at all I refuse God. I reject God. Why is this thanksgiving so hard?”

My foolish pride thinks I don’t deserve these moments of heartache. And in my ungratefulness, my joy is extinguished. I search for the grace- no, the common sense!- to thank God for this deployment. I don’t understand it, but He has given it to me wrapped in shiny paper and a sparkly bow- it is a gift that He has delighted to give me. I shake my head in wonder at this strange God that I serve… and I wonder  why I doubt His wise love still after so long…

So, tonight, I give thanks…

…for napkin rings

…for autumn leaves that fall like confetti and balloons on me, the winner!

…for “What are we going to do today?!”s

…for orange-painted toe nails

…for blogger friends who sympathize

…for soldier man who writes inappropriate comments on my Facebook wall

…for the smell of new books

…for “blessings all mine, with 10,000 beside!”

…and I wait for the miracle!!