Finding Joy

I blogged earlier about a book I was reading, One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. I highly recommend this book - it has challenged me to find joy in the everyday moments of life. I hit my 100th joy today... I've been doing this for about 10 days now. That comes down to 10 joys a day. Wow! I thought I'd come and share some of them with you (some funny, some sentimental, some I usually would've overlooked...):


1) Fresh brewed green tea
11) A hug from a student
15) Friendship with coworkers
18) Eating a good sandwich for lunch
25) Reading about adoption
30) Grocery shopping
37) Grilling in the cold
41) Being able to go to church
45) Buying a new basketball
52) Completing a rigorous workout
58) A worn, comfortable blanket
69) Seeing a village in Africa get clean, running water for the very first time
89) Communicating through smiles to a student who speaks no English
97) Waking up naturally with no alarms
100) Lotion that soothes dry skin


And the challenge continues. Some days I've found it really easy to come up with a ton of things - other days it's hard to come up with three. But each day as I open my eyes more and more towards the little things in life, I find myself happier and finding true joy in blessings all around me. It really is true that we are so blessed in life - it's just that often, we are blind to it. Consumed by the busy-ness of life.


There was a quote from the book I wanted to blog about:

Life is not to be lived as an emergency. 

The question to myself has been: How can I live my life so that in every moment, no matter the circumstance, I can give thanks and be joyful? 

I am a natural planner - I love to organize my schedule and always be doing something with my time. Of course, I have my lazy days where I like to relax, but I never like to have  that for too long - I always need to be doing something. But why? What for? Of course, I have responsibilities and things that I need to take care of... but why the rush? What am I rushing for? To feel productive? To feel like I'm not wasting my time?

In the rush of it all, I lost sight of what is most important in life - God and people. I have been learning to slow down and learning that not every single minute of a day needs to be planned out and packed with action. Time is to be invested living in the moment and being present in each moment, not just rushing from one moment to the next. Very hard for me to do, but taking on this 1000 joys challenge has helped me immensely. 

Slow down and live each day fully in the moment. :)