Ann Voskamp (born August 10, 1973 in Listowel, Ontario) is the author of the New York Times Bestseller, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, published by Zondervan.
In counting gifts, to one thousand, more, I discover that slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life.
Gratitude is the most fruitful way of deepening your consciousness that you are a divine choice.
It's the greatest compliment when the writer becomes invisible in the whole process.
Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will.
In our rushing, bulls in china shops, we break our own lives.
Every moment I live, I live bowed to something. And if I don't see God, I'll bow down before something else.
Because nothing is greater and we have no greater need, God gives God.
We don't see the material world for what it is meant to be: the means to communion with God. . . . There is a belief missing, that God is good and that he gives good gifts.
Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation.
Any kind of love that lacks the iron of the Cross in it, is anemic love.
At the last, this is what will determine a fulfilling, meaningful life, a life that, behind all the facades, every one of us longs to live: gratitude for the blessings that expresses itself by becoming the blessing.
I make soup and I back bread and I know my supreme need is joy in God and I know I can't experience deep joy in God until I deep trust in God. I shine sinks and polish through to the realization that trusting God is my most urgent need. If I deep trusted God in all the facets of my life, wouldn't that deep heal my anxiety, my self-condemnation, my soul holes? The fear is suffocating, terrorizing, and I want the remedy, and it is trust. Trust is everything. If fear keeps our lives small, does a life that receives all of God in this moment grow large too?
Real joy is not found in having the best of everything but in trusting that God is making the best of everything.
The answer to deep anxiety is the deep adoration of God.
Grace is the only thing that is ever enough.
When your ethnicity is heaven, then all adversity offers the gift of intimacy, driving you into the home of His heart.
Are stress and worry evidence of a soul too lazy, too undisciplined, to keep gaze fixed on God?
Every day, with every word, we get to decide: Do we mar the world, or mark the world?
I don't want a Christmas you can buy. I don't want a Christmas you can make. What I want is a Christmas you can hold. A Christmas that holds me, remakes me, revives me. I want a Christmas that whispers, Jesus.
The message of Christmas is not that we can make peace. Or that we can make love, make light, make gifts, or make this world save itself. The message of Christmas is that this world’s a mess and we can never save ourselves from ourselves and we need a Messiah.