our grateful hearts / week one recap

One of Greg and my goals for November is to daily journal 3-4 "gifts" or blessings we are thankful to God for.  By the end of the month, we should have between 90-100 gifts that are journaled. This is a shortened version of the 1000 gifts challenge (inspired by Ann Voscamp's book, One Thousand Gifts) I posted about back in 2014 where I daily journaled 3 gifts and after one year, had one thousand gifts that I could look back on and praise God for being so incredibly good to me. We are surrounded with so many evidences of God's unfailing love for us, so we wanted to challenge ourselves to focus on small and big things we are thankful for, so that it will change the way we see God's goodness and sovereignty as well as how we love others around us. In the past, looking at the gifts God daily gave me has helped change my attitude and mood from worried and anxious to joyful and peacefully trusting in Him.

“A life contemplating the blessings of Christ 

becomes a life acting the love of Christ.” 

Ann Voscamp, One Thousand Gifts

Here are some of the gifts we journaled from the first week of November:

1. Wayside Chapel, our home church in San Antonio. We are so thankful for the fellowship opportunities through life groups and Bible studies as well as a myriad of ministry opportunities. We are excited to get more involved and plugged into this awesome Biblically-solid church that practices what it preaches. 

2. Daylight savings (heelllooo extra hour of sleep/reading/relaxing!)

3. Our Honeymoon to Maui. We rested and relaxed under the palm trees, swam & snorkeled in the ocean, adventured through the Road to Hana, and just loved experiencing it all together. 

4. The wedding gifts we received at our three showers as well as at the wedding. We are set with all the home stuff we need, plus we were blessed with money gifts from our wedding guests that just blew us away. We feel so incredibly loved and supported by our friend and family.

5. Home-cooked meals and quality time around the table. During the busyness of wedding planning the past few months, we both dropped the ball on cooking home-cooked meals (me in Portland, he in Texas), so it has been so awesome to be able to cook together in our apartment and relax after Greg comes home from work. We are challenging ourselves to learn two new recipes this month.

6. Cool Texas sweater weather. Contrary to what many believe, Texas does get nice and chilly.

7. Gospel-centered, truth-filled books. We are reading You & Me Forever (my Francis and Lisa Chan) and 7 Women (by Eric Metaxes), Greg just finished Forgotten God (by Francis Chan) and is studying the Bible alongside The Parables of Jesus (by James Montgomery Boice).

8. Coffee with a friend. It was so great to catch up and encourage one another.

9. Saying goodbye to long-distance dating and all the difficulties about it, especially being apart during hard conversations or when one of us is having a rough day. It has been so great to hold each other's hands while we have hard conversations and to assure each other of our love while we are side by side rather than screen to screen on FaceTime. 

11. Quiet evenings on our couch where we are reading, studying the Bible, journaling, sipping on tea, and sneaking kisses every once in a while. 

16. Saturday Farmer's Market at Pearl. We loved our gluten-free savory crepes as well as checking out all of the vendors. Then we walked off some calories on the River Walk.

17. An awesome weekend retreat with women from Wayside Chapel. I got to spend time with a few friends, plus I met a lot of women and learned abut ministry opportunities and great life groups that are going on. It'll be nice to recognize a few more faces on Sundays! 

18. Our wedding! We loved our wedding day! It was so wonderful to celebrate with dear friends and family as we promised our love to one another for the rest of our lives. We were blown away by the generosity of our loved ones. 

I love that there are so many link-ups related to having thankful hearts. I am linking up with Ember Grey with Grateful Heart as well as Brushing Our Way Through Life , While I'm Waiting & Queen In Between ,  Knit By God's Hands , and Bella Brita today!