ok. i’m barely half way through the 31 days and i’ve missed a day! i’m so sorry that i missed yesterday! i don’t know how it happened. it’s just been too darn busy around here and i was on the couch at 9pm last night when i realized that i’d missed it. ack.

some days it’s just too crazy to pray… but really, those are the days we need prayer most… right?!

so here i am ready to get started again. a little grace and i can face today’s post.  today we’re going to talk about learning how to be thankful in prayer.

i’m pulling these ideas from Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. i loved this book when i read it this past spring. i even quoted it a couple of times already on this blog. lately, i’ve heard a lot of criticism for it being too flowery, to girly…heck, one friend was even turned off by the “nest on the cover”… but if you give it a chance, and you don’t judge it by the cover, {seriously,you-know-who-you are-friend, you’re even a lit person… you should know better ;)…hee hee} you could seriously be touched too.

but as for prayer, what really struck me about this book, and what i keep remembering from it, is to be alert to God’s gifts…

“If you want to be really alert to seeing Jesus’ divine beauty, his glory…then make sure you tune your senses to see his grace”

-quoted from John Piper.

…and to have a constant thankful-list on my lips.

if i open my eyes to God’s gifts daily, i can see how much He is working! and i can be thankful for each and every gift. when i start making a list of these gifts, even if the gift is just a small glimpse of beauty, i realize how much i go about day after day not noticing. if i start  making a list everyday… and use it as a thankful-prayer then i start living a grateful life that truly knows and trusts that God’s taking care of me.

here are a couple of quotes about counting your gifts so that you can be thankful::

“that gratitude truly is the foremost quality of a believing disciple because gratitude is what births trust…the true belief.”

“the counting of all blessings is ultimately summed up in One…to know how we can count on God, we count graces, but ultimately there is really one One.”

“the real problem of life-in my life-is lack of thanksgiving.”

“eucharisteo means “to give thanks” and to give is a verb, something that we do. God calls me to do thanks. to give the thanks away. That thanks-giving might literally become thanks-living. that our lives become the very blessings we have received.”

Ann Voskamp

beautiful huh? i think i’m going to go take a moment and see what gifts i can be thankful for today. she talks about starting a journal where we just list the gifts we are thankful for. sounds like a good idea to focus my prayers on constant thanks. all that’s left to do, is just do it! ;)

go check out her book or her blog to learn more about  Ann Voskamps’s idea finding joy in thanksgiving.

{this is day 19 of 31 days of prayer. thanks for being here!}