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.
Joy is always a function of gratitude - and gratitude is always a function of perspective.
Love comes softly, it cannot be forced. . . cannot bear the weight of our expectations. Love always comes in the surrender - in the falling.
How my eyes see, perspective, is my key to enter into His gates. I can only do so with thanksgiving. If my inner eye has God seeping up through all things, then can't I give thanks for anything? And if I can give thanks for the good things, the hard things, the absolute everything, I can enter the gates to glory. Living in His presence is fullness of joy- and seeing shows the way in.
The only way to care for the disadvantaged - is to disadvantage yourself -which is guaranteed to turn out for your advantage.
Worry is the facade of taking action when prayer really is.
The prayers we weave into the matching of socks, the stirring of oatmeal, the reading of stories, they survive fire.
When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us?
How do I wake up to joy and grace and beauty and all that is the fullest life when I must stay numb to losses and crushed dreams and all that empties me out?
Real Womanhood isn’t a function of becoming a great mother, but of being loved by your Great Father.
It's habits that can imprison you and it's habits that can free you. But when thanks to God becomes a habit - so joy in God becomes your life.
What was intended to harm, God intended it all for good. And no matter what intends to harm you, God's arms have you. You can never be undone.
Comparison is a thug that robs your joy. But its even more than that - Comparison makes you a thug who beats down somebody - or your soul.
I didn't (and still don't) have comments [in my blog]. It's about simply writing for an audience of One.
Satan's sin becomes the first sin of all humanity: the sin of ingratitude. Adam and Eve are, simply, painfully ungrateful for what God gave.
You've got to use the life you've been given to give others life
Stress isn't only a joy stealer. The way we respond to it can be sin.
Research actually indicates that if you write down what you're grateful for, it increases your happiness by 25%. And who doesn't want that? And God's word says (1 Thessalonians 5), "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. " Who doesn't want to know exactly what God's will is for them?
The only way to fight a feeling is with a feeling.
Praying with eyes wide open is the only way to pray without ceasing.
All God makes is good. Can it be that that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God?