I first read One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp in February of 2011, when Scarlette was on her third month in the NICU and both my heart and my faith were broken.
Sometimes people read Scarlette’s story and email me to tell me that they think I am brave for sharing it. The truth is, I never really felt brave at all in sharing anything I wrote about Scarlette during those horrible months because at the time I was just so heartbroken and angry.
I was angry at my body for failing to do the job that it is supposed to be designed for and I was angry at everyone around me for not being able to fix her and I was angry at God for blessing me with a child that was born into suffering.
So many people recommended this book to me and I just couldn’t because what did some random author know about my pain and my grief and my baby? I didn’t want to be told that God was good. I wanted Scarlette to get better.
But since I spent full days in a hospital room yet was only allowed to hold my daughter for an hour or so of that and since a friend thrust a copy of the book on me, sending it to my kindle so that I couldn’t refuse it, I settled my weary body and spirit into the world’s most uncomfortable recliner next to her isolette and began to read.
And this is where I sort of lose my words because I don’t know Ann but I feel as though we navigated through that time together and I am deeply indebted to her for being the brave one and binding all of her words into a book because it was healing for me. At a time where I was deep in the question of WHY: Why did this happen? Why is God allowing my baby to suffer? Why do I even still believe in this kind of faith when this current view looks nothing like goodness? these pages provided comfort.
Not answers, exactly, because I think I could search the world over for an answer and never get one to satisfy me this side of heaven. I mean, it doesn’t make sense that babies suffer. It doesn’t make sense that babies die. I could never hold another mother’s hand in a hospital and give them an answer that makes sense.
But it is definitely a book that provided me with peace. It’s not an easy read, it’s deep and searching, but it is a good one and one that I find myself recommending often. I do, I pass on copies to other worn weary moms in our NICU, pressing a note and a promise into their hands with a silent prayer that their stories will be like ours, a story of joy from mourning and a garment of praise from the heaviness.
I am about 3/4 of the way through my second read-through. Certain passages feel tied to my NICU emotions, remembering how I felt when I first read it in that hospital room and they slam into my chest with both a harsh memory and a great thanksgiving for where we are now. Others feel like a fresh, new perspective on faith and since mine was changed so very much through our experience I have been soaking in these words. This quote from the book is one of my favorites:
“It is in the dark that God is passing by. The bridge and our lives shake not because God has abandoned, but the exact opposite: God is passing by. God is in the tremors. Dark is the holiest ground, the glory passing by. In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging His perfect and right will. Though it is black and we can’t see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us…” – Ann Voskamp
It almost seems impossible reading it, like an too-easy answer but when you read the story you find that it’s not impossible at all. And when you look at your own story you find it there, the tremors in the darkness. I found it there, on a Tuesday when a heartbeat stretched into a thin red line and it was the blackest.
And then there is this one, which has been inscribed and hung in our home because I never want to forget :
“Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle.” – Ann Voskamp
I realize that giveaway posts are probably supposed to be much perkier than this but the truth is, this book helped guide me through one of the most difficult times of my entire existence and I don’t think it would honor my experience to just say “I loved this book! Enter this giveaway!” So you get this, perhaps a bit raw, but honest nonetheless.
So if you think you’d like to have this book in your life (or for someone you know) then just leave a comment to enter (as always you can “like” Ann’s facebook page or send out a tweet for extra entries using rafflecopter)
(I was sent a new, complimentary copy of the book to review but was not compensated for this post and all opinions are my own, I mean, obviously right? This is probably not at all what the publisher was expecting me y’all! I use affiliate links and entering the giveaway means that you agree to the giveaway terms, etcetera etcetera disclosure ;))
