'One Thousand Gifts"

I'm reading this book like a medication, faithfully reading a chapter a day. It's not what I expected, but it's working. It's beautiful literature.

The chapter I read today hit all the difficult questions I've been asking myself really hard. And this one section just begs to be shared somewhere - I feel like it's a little deep to slap in the middle of all my facebook photos with santa and making cookies. But I'm happy to put it here.

"...I know that the spirit-to-spirit combat I endlessly wage with Satan is this ferocious thrash for joy. He sneers at all the things that seem to have gone hideously mad in this sin-drunk world, and I gasp to say God is good. The liar defiantly scrawls his graffiti across God's glory, and I heave to enjoy God... and Satan strangles, and I whiten knuckles to grasp real Truth and fix that beast to the floor." Ann VosKamp, Ten Thousand Gifts, p.90

It feels like this book was written for me. That's how dead on it is in describing what I'm struggling with and specific life situations that haunt me.

And, knowing God, it was.

It's written by a Mennonite woman who witnessed the violent death of her younger sister when the writer was 4. Her struggle to believe in a good God led her to accept the challenge from a friend to list one thousand gifts. It's truly beautiful. I recommend it.