eucharisteo.

I finally found the perfect name for my blog. I have been through a couple. They usual hold my excitement and attention for about a week before I tire of it and am searching for the next. But this one...it has stuck. It comes from a book I read a few weeks back called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Vaskamp. Basically, she is on the search to find joy. And she finds it...through eucharisteo.

Eucharisteo is latin for "thanksgiving." It it most commonly found in the Bible when Jesus is attending the Last Supper; as he breaks the breaks the bread and drinks the wine, He gives thanks to God. And all this before the most excruciating 24 hours of His life. The word eucharisteo is derived from two other Latin words: charis, which translates to grace, and chara, which translates to joy. Basically, "deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo - the table of thanksgiving." It's an interesting and seemingly simple concept - when we give thanks, we get joy. Vaskamp walks through her journey towards joy through the mundane, simple, confusing, painful and heartbreaking things that life brings. She begins with a list. A list of a thousand things she is thankful for. A list kept for months and months. A list that changes her life. Because as she begins to ask for the Lord to open the eyes of her heart to see "grace moments" - the little gifts that the Lord showers on us daily - her heart is softened and she begins to experience joy...real, deep, lasting joy...in a life that seems hopeless. So all these things tie together to form life to the fullest. God gives us moments of grace (even in the midst of our most tragic trial or the most ordinary day), we give thanks to Him and then we get the joy! Grace creates thanksgiving which creates joy. Sounds simple right? Ha! It is an everyday, tiresome practice to attempt to look for the small gifts of grace the Lord gives us. It is a discipline.

This book inspired me. Inspired me to live a eucharisteo life. Inspired me to begin my own list of one thousand gifts. Inspired me to be a hunter of beauty, a seeker of joy, a giver of thanks. And this, my friends, is why I decided to name my blog Eucharisteo.

Below you will find some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"Every sin is an attempt to fly away from emptiness."

"Eucharisteo - thanksgiving - always precedes the miracle."

"Slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life...life changing gratitude does not fasten to a life unless nailed through with one very specific nail at a time."

"Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all those who don't numb themselves to really living."

"The life of true holiness is rooted in the soil of awed adoration. It does not grow elsewhere."

"The full life, the one spilling joy and peace, happens only as I come to trust the caress of the Lover, Lover who never burdens His children with shame or self condemnation but keeps stroking the fears with gentle grace."

"These are for you - gifts - these are for you - grace - these are for you - God...so count the ways He loves, a thousand, more, never stop, that when you wake in the morning you can't help but turn humbly to the east, unfold your hand to the heavens, and though you tremble and though you wonder, though the world is ugly, it is beautiful, and you can slow and you can trust and you can receive each moment as grace."

"God is always good and I am always loved."