One minute, nearly every day, I jot down a few lines in my "gift list."
No big deal... except that it's changed my life.
As of last month, I have recorded ten thousand reasons that I'm grateful.
It started in Spring 2011, almost two years into my time in Cambodia. A friend recommended Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts. She explained the premise or "dare" of the book: by writing down three things a day that you're thankful for, in one year your list will reach 1000. I scoffed, "Who needs a whole book to explain that?" But I liked the idea, so I started writing things down, with no idea whether I'd stick it out all year. (I later read the book and liked it better than I'd expected... it obviously had a lot more content. But you don't have to like Voskamp to try the list.)
My list contained the gamut of good things. Cold refreshing smoothies, cooperative traffic lights, and comfy shoes. Acts of kindness, great role models, and sweet moments with loved ones. Biblical truths, unexpected opportunities, and evidence of growth in myself or those around me. One of the early items, after Japan's tragic tsunami, was Cambodia's safety from natural disasters. Every now and then, I'd repeat an item if it was just that good - there are a lot of variations on "chocolate," "mangoes," and "naps."
I didn't realize how much I needed this list. In the first few months, I was often overwhelmed, exhausted, and anxious. "Nothing to add from today," I'd mumble to myself some nights. But as I stopped and reflected, there was always something. In fact, there were always some things.
Inevitably on those "nothing" days, until I sat down with my journal, still-ungraded essays or a flopped lesson or concern for a hurting friend had pushed out of my mind a colleague's patience with me. Or the sunset that I'd seen driving home from work. Or the satisfaction of a clean room or a tasty lunch. Sometimes they spilled onto the page long after I'd reached three. The discipline of recording them helped me notice the beauty in Phnom Penh, the freedom in singleness, the joy in serving, the perks of a life that didn't always go my way. I started feeling the truth of Psalm 103:5 - "He fills my life with good things..." Not just other people's lives. God was filling my life, day by day, with evidence of His goodness.
One year later, I had zoomed past 1000 with no intention of stopping. And I'm so glad, because summer and fall 2012 contained some of the most difficult events of my life. But I felt more resilient than before the list. I started thinking at various moments, "This would be a good thing to write down for today." Voskamp describes it as a "treasure hunt." Looking for the gifts heightened my awareness that grief and fear were not the whole story, that help and hope were close at hand. It's not just in my head, either... recent findings in neuroscience back me up that gratitude makes us healthier and a whopping 25% happier.
The list came with me to America during summer breaks and when I moved back, a familiar friend in a sea of change. But despite its obvious benefit to me, it still took me years to get in the habit of writing daily. After too many times of racking my brain... Okay, now what happened last Thursday? ... I finally started keeping the journal under my pillow so I'd remember it every night. Now, it's a great way to close my day.
I like this way of tracking time. Without a traditional diary, this is my only way to date memories. It's an excellent tool against self-pity. Recently, flipping through, I thought, Wow, ___ was already going on by #9185? That was almost a thousand gifts ago! What started out as "woe is me, I've endured this for a while," instantly turned to, "Look how God has cared for me ever since." In other cases, it's a lasting reminder of whole blissful days or remarkable answers to prayer, which my faulty memory rarely recalls unprompted. It's hard to read it without smiling.
Sometimes I write things down without actually having the gift notebook along. That was the case in Preah Vihear this summer, where I brought minimal luggage. I just wrote items down in a different notebook, without numbering them. When I returned to Phnom Penh, I recopied two months of gifts into my main notebook. Knowing I was close to ten thousand, I'd been wondering what I'd write for that one. I was trying to resist the temptation to make it something flashy, because that's not what this is about, but also hoping it wouldn't be something totally trivial like "I finally changed my oil." But no! Without tweaking the order, this ended up being #10,000: "Your promises are true: You are strong, You love me, and You answer prayer." I was in awe. Aren't those the truths that I'd seen over and over through even the smallest details of this list?
Today I watched the Bible Project video on the book of Ecclesiastes. "'Meaningless! Meaningless!' says the Teacher. 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.'" Apparently hevel, the Hebrew word often translated as "meaningless" (used 38 times to describe aspects of life), is actually closer to "vapor" or "smoke," in the sense of being fleeting and mysterious. Our lives are short, confusing, and often out of our control. But Ecclesiastes also celebrates "the gift of God" - enjoying simple good things in life like friendship, family, a good meal, or a sunny day. "You can't control these things, they're certainly not guaranteed to us, but that's their beauty. When I come to adopt a posture of total trust in God, it frees me to enjoy my life as I actually experience it, not as I think it ought to be."
One minute a day isn't much. But in my quest to celebrate God's daily presence and provision as I actually experience it, it's been surprisingly powerful.
