Looking for jewels...

 

 I haven't been updating my blog as much as I would like... and that's partially due to the fact that I recently started a private blog as a spiritual journal. There's been a lot going on in my heart, but a lot of it isn't the kind of stuff that I would post on a public blog... Not because it's scandalous or even that intensely personal... But honestly, a lot of things in my life look an awful lot like ashes right now. A blog should be genuine... But I want my blog to be filled with words of praise and gratitude. Not ashes. But one thing that I've learned is that some of the most beautiful things in my life have risen up out of the ashes.  Mmm hmm...that's where the blog's name came from--you're catching on!  Because...there are almost always jewels in the ashes if you are looking for them.  But you have to look for them.  Sometimes, you have to dig for them.  But they're there just the same, and when your heart wells up with praise to the Lord for the smallest jewel in the midst of the ashes, that is beautiful... . . .  If you read this post, you remember that I've been reading a book called, "One Thousand Gifts"  The Lord has used this book to remind me to be looking for all of the little blessings in my life from day to day...  All of the abundant blessings that are so far beyond anything I could ever deserve... to get my mind off of the ashes... I want my lips to praise the Lord continually. I don't know about you, but I used to sometimes feel a twinge of guilt when I praised the Lord for certain comforts in life.  It seemed somehow shallow or selfish to praise the Lord for peace or safety when everyone knows that true character rejoices in tribulation.  Am I a shallow Christian if my heart spills over with gratitude over trivial things? Early on in the book, Ann Voskamp addresses this question when her heart welled up with thanks while preparing a simple homemade pizza for her family: "I think how God-glory in a cheese ring might seem trifling.  Even offensive, to focus the lens of a heart on the minute, in a world mangled and maimed and desperately empty.  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 rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives." I found comfort in her words, and I felt challenged to begin my own journey of counting "one thousand gifts" (you'll understand this better if you read the book). So, I intend to keep a gratitude journal of life's blessings--both big and small--from day to day. Because God is good.  Why not list thousands (upon thousands) of reasons why I should praise Him? Mmm...and another quote from Ann...  Remembering why we praise God. "God is not in need of magnifying by us so small, but the reverse.  It's our lives that are little and we have falsely inflated self...  In thanks we decrease and the world returns right." Somewhere along the line, humankind got the idea that we deserve something more than ashes...when in reality an eternity of ashes would be perfectly suited to what we deserve.  When we get a right perspective on who we are, and a right perspective on who God is, we can truly praise Him in any circumstances.  It is then that we can find the beauty in the ashes... When it's appropriate, I may post random tidbits from my gratitude journal on my blog.  I'd love to hear yours as well. And if your life looks like ashes right now... Join me.  Let's start looking for jewels.  :-)