Day thirty-nine ~ forty-two

Has God ever hand picked your reading material? I feel spoiled, and loved, and completely in awe all at once. In March I was struggling...I was absolutely drowning in my grief. My aunt followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit and mailed me the book 'One Thousand Gifts' by Ann Voskamp, which completely turned everything around. It was exactly what I needed. The other day while retrieving my mail I found a package from one of my mom's dear friends from our time back in Colorado. She too had felt lead to send me a book, and I imagine this book will have a similar effect, how could it not? You've got mail from your Heavenly Father. Amazing.

I am so grateful both of these beautiful souls were willing vessels for God to work in my life. It really makes me think about how often I ignore the promptings, or get to busy to hear them. How many opportunities am I missing to do God's work and be the blessing for others? In the book 'One Thousand Gifts' Ann points out what I so blindingly overlooked all my years as a believer,"Eucharisteo (the Greek word for thanksgiving) is giving thanks for grace. But in the breaking and giving of bread, in the washing of feet, Jesus makes it clear that eucharisteo is, yes, more: it is giving grace away." She is referring to John 13:2,4,12-15, the last meal Jesus would share with his disciples before his crucifixion.  

The evening meal was being served...Jesus got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples feet, drying them with the towel that wrapped around him...

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" He asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord', and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example, that you should as I have done for you"

"Jesus is about to let flesh be broken with nail, heart be broken with rejection, the chains be broken with bleeding love. And in His last hours before His earthly end, He doesn't run out and buy something or catch a flight to go see something, but He wraps a towel around his waist and kneels low to take the feet of his foresakers gently in hand and wash away the grime between their toes. This the full-bodied eucharisteo, the eucharisteo that touches body and soul: hands and knees and feet awash in grace. At the last, this is what will determine fulfilling, meaningful life, a becoming the blessing. Eucharisteo is the hand that opens to grace, with thanks breaks the bread; that moves out into the larger circle of life and washed the feet of the world with that grace. Without the breaking and giving, without the washing of feet, eucharisteo isn't complete. The Communion service is only complete in service. Communion by necessity, always leads us into community."

"Eucharisteo means 'to give thanks', and give is a verb, something that we do. God calls me to do thanks. To give thanks away. That thanks-giving might literally become thanks-living. That our lives become the very blessing we have received. I am blessed. I can bless. Imagine! I could let Him make me the gift! I could be the joy!"

And I experienced the blessing from my Aunt and my mom's dear friend. They washed my feet in God's amazing grace and I too want to serve in that way. God gives us so many opportunities to bless others, and I want to pay closer attention to the stirring of the spirit.

The only things that get in the way of God's work is our selfish natures. We think we can make better use of our time, or finances, we are to busy. But isn't relationships our main purpose here on earth? The reason for existence. In Luke 10:27 Jesus is asked "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" and he responds, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself" Everything else in our lives should be secondary to these two things. ❤

In the spirit of this revelation, I have put the idea of thanksgiving into my daily life, even in the most menial tasks. If done unto God, the mundane work can become living service of the Last Supper. Dedicating the domestic routine as thanks to Him. 

"When service is unto people, the bones can grow weary, the frustrations deep. Dorothy Sayers is quoted..."whenever man is made the centre of things, he becomes the storm-centre of trouble. The moment you think of serving people, you begin to have the notion that other people owe you something for your pains...You will begin to bargain for reward, to angle for applause." As a mother, doing laundry, it's true I think I'm due some appreciation. So comes the storm of trouble and lightning strikes joy. But when Christ is at the center, when dishes, laundry, work, is my song of thanks to Him, joy rains. Passionately serving Christ alone makes us loving serving to all. When the eyes of the heart focus on God, and the hand on always washing the feet of Jesus alone-the bones, they sing joy, and the work returns to it's purest states: eucharisteo. The work becomes worship, a work of thankfulness."

My daily life as stay at home mom feels profoundly more important these days. 

* The purple text is excerpts from the book 'One Thousand Gifts' and Ann's words not my own.