Research actually indicates that if you write down what you're grateful for, it increases your happiness by 25 percent. 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?

Ann Voskamp

Categorized in : Jesus Writing Grateful

Being joyful isn't what makes you grateful. Being grateful is what makes you joyful.

Ann Voskamp

be-grateful joyful grateful

The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest light to all the world.

Ann Voskamp

light beautiful giving

Busy is a choice. Stress is a choice. Joy is a choice. Choose well.

Ann Voskamp

stress choices joy

It is in the dark that God is passing by. The bridge and our lives shake not because God has abandoned, but the exact opposite: God is passing by. God is in the tremors. Dark is the holiest ground, the glory passing by. In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging His perfect and right will. Though it is black and we can't see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us.

Ann Voskamp

our-world dark fall

Gratitude is not only a response to God in good times - it's ultimately the very will of God in hard times. Gratitude isn't only a celebration when good things happen. It's a declaration that God is good no matter what happens.

Ann Voskamp

gratitude hard-times matter

Like the wind, Grace finds us wherever we are and won't leave us however we were found.

Ann Voskamp

religious christian wind

We live in a broken world - and for the life of me I can't get it all right. But Jesus takes all our broken messes and He makes them, by His grace, into a mosaic of grace.

Ann Voskamp

broken grace jesus

Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle.

Ann Voskamp

thanksgiving miracle

Giving thanks is that: making the canyon of pain into a megaphone to proclaim the ultimate goodness of God when Satan and all the world would sneer at us to recant.

Ann Voskamp

pain giving world

Instead of giving someone a piece of your mind, it turns out far better if you give them a piece of your heart.

Ann Voskamp

mind heart giving

Joy is always a function of gratitude - and gratitude is always a function of perspective.

Ann Voskamp

autism gratitude perspective

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.

Ann Voskamp

thanks habit joy

We only enter into the full life if our faith gives thanks. Because how else do we accept His free gift of salvation if not with thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance of whatever He gives. Thanksgiving is the manifestation of our Yes! to His grace.

Ann Voskamp

free-gifts acceptance giving

When the heart and mind focus on things unseen - that's when there's a visible change in us.

Ann Voskamp

focus mind heart

There is unwavering peace today when an uncertain tomorrow is trusted to an unchanging God.

Ann Voskamp

unchanging tomorrow today

We give thanks to God not because of how we feel, but because of Who He is.

Ann Voskamp

thanks feels giving

Worry is belief gone wrong. Because you don't believe that God will get it right. But peace - peace is belief that exhales. Because you believe that God's provision is everywhere - like air.

Ann Voskamp

air worry believe

I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I've seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives.

Ann Voskamp

thanksgiving running song

And the earth under your feet, the rain over your face upturned, the stars spinning all around you in the brazen glory: this is for you, you, you. These are for you-gifts-these are for you-grace-these are for you-God, so count the ways He loves, a thousand, more, never stop, that when you wake in the morning you can't help turn humbly to the east, unfold your hand to the heavens, and though you tremble and though you wonder, though the world is ugly, it is beautiful, and you can slow and you can trust and you can receive each moment as grace.

Ann Voskamp

stars morning beautiful

On the night He was betrayed Jesus broke bread and lifted it up and gave THANKS. If Jesus can give thanks in that, can we not give thanks in all?

Ann Voskamp

giving night jesus