pursuing LOVE...and JOY...and WHOLEHEARTEDNESS!

My mom recommended that I read One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. My mom is an avid reader and her reading recommendations are always excellent. So, I borrowed her copy and started reading… Wow. Ann Voskamp is truly an artist and her framework for finding joy in every moment of our lives stirs my heart. She paints these beautiful word pictures of life on their farm and raising her children. Ann also writes about feeling disappointment, suffering, anger and sadness. These are feelings that are familiar to me and she describes them in a way that fits with my experience of them. But, right when she has me hooked by those shared feelings, she starts writing about emptying ourselves so that God can fill us and how joy is always available to us through Jesus if we have eyes to see it in our circumstances. Ann writes about practicing thanksgiving by looking for points of joy in everyday life and how our hearts naturally shift as we teach our eyes to see differently and our hearts to receive

How do I stay clean? The blood of Jesus is what cleanses me from sin. I stay clean by partnering with Jesus. I agree with His testimony. Who is Jesus? He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. (John 1:28) Who am I? I am the one that Jesus desires to have with Him where He is. I am the one that God gave to Jesus so that I may see His glory which God has given Him. The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! John 1:28-30 Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. John 17:23-25 My thoughts What is Jesus' testimony about me? Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.