My washing machine is a girl, and she has a crush on my husband.

How else does one explain her habit of malfunctioning on me and then working like a charm the moment my husband comes home. She hates me. 

Obviously I’m joking, but we do sometimes make things personal in our own mind that really aren’t. At least I do. One of my goals this term is to try not to do this and to also remember who the real enemy is. It isn’t my washing machine, my noisy neighbor, the reckless and rude drivers, the corrupt policeman, or even the electric company. We know the real adversary is Satan, but sometimes we assist him by being our own enemy as well. 

For me, it’s the trap of looking inward instead of upward. Of being ungrateful. Of feeling entitled.

During furlough, I finally got my hot little hands (Yes, they are hot, I live in Africa.) on a copy of One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp, thanks to a dear friend.  I know, I know, everyone else read that book ages ago and this is old news for most folks. I have really been enjoying it. I am going through it slowly, taking time to reflect and absorb. Here are some of my favorite quotes so far:

“Jesus didn’t institute the Eucharist around some unusual, rare, once-a-year event, but around this continual act of eating a slice of bread, drinking a cup of fruit from the vine. First Corinthians 11:26 reads, ‘whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup” (NIV) –whenever.”

She quotes Alexander Schmemann: “Now, in the Bible a name…reveals the very essence of a thing, or rather its essence as God’s gift….To name a think is to manifest the meaning and value God gave it, to know it as coming from God and to know its place and function within the cosmos created by God. To name a thing, in other words, is to bless God for it and in it.”  

                                                                                                                    Does the old hymn “Count Your Blessings” come to mind? Name them, one by one. By doing so we are blessing the Lord and in return, we learn the secret to being content.

She writes about replacing the habit of discontentment with a habit of seeing God’s gifts as grace and accepting them with thanksgiving. 

Why is it that we interpret everything that is bad or hurtful as a personal attack from someone/something/somewhere and blindly overlook so many of the truly personal acts of grace intended for us that the Father bestows on us every day?

I am looking forward to the rest of the book, to learning about the author’s journey and transformation and to see how God might use her story in my life. 

Elliot: the picture of contentment.