1,000 Gifts > Chapter 4

This post is part of my Book Club Series

which was started by {this} and {this} lovely lady

To start from the beginning click {here}

So I know I'm coming a day late to the party, but I have a really good excuse for my tardiness.
I was driving across the country yesterday

From Virginia Beach back to Chicago

Counting Gifts mile by my with my sun roof open, blue skies and singing loud to new country music.

This week's chapter was all about slowing down time - enjoying every moment. 

I don't think I could have been in any better place to practice this art - and yes, I believe it is an art. I crammed a whole lot of stuff into 3 brief days with my brother, sister-in-law, and niece. Taking every precious moment to just BE with them and not rush through events of the visit. Even the 14 hour drive each way was moments to take, and thank God for each moment I have to enjoy Him as I zoom across this AMAZING country. I feel content as I write this from my room in Chicago. This week, each day, has been perfect. Not because I have been happy the whole time or that plans have gone my way to perfection -

but because I accepted EVERYTHING that God gave me this week. I ceased striving and practiced getting everything from the moment that God was giving me.

SOUND BYTES:

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." J.R.R. Tolkien (p62)

"'--Where ever you are, be all there,' I have lived the runner, panting ahead in worry, pounding back in regrets, terrified to live in the present, because here-time asks me to do the hardest of all: just open wide and receive. [...] It's not the gifts that fulfill, but the holiness of the space. The God in it." (p69)

"When I'm present, I meet I AM, the very presence of a present God." (p70)

"And I can always give thanks because an all-powerful God always has all these things - all things - always under control." (p74)

TRUTH TO WRITE ON HER HEART:

This week I didn't choose a verse from the chapter. The whole time I was reading Ann's words, Psalm 46:10 continued to repeat in my mind. "Be Still." The ESV version says "Cease Striving." I love that picture. I don't have to move at all. It is in the stillness that I find God and his movement in every moment.

GRATITUDE EVERYDAY:

I thought I'd share by pictures rather than words this week!