6 Gifts Today (Catching up) ~ Days 9 and 10

First off...Happy Anniversary to me and Edster!  Three years ago today...we had a wonderful worship service...that also served as a wedding.  My dad had died the night before...but, in typical fashion, he left early so he could get the best seat. <smile>

So...back to the Joy Dare...first...three Gifts Praised (do I have to keep it to three?)

• I've been involved in a women's Bible study on James: Mercy Triumphs by Beth Moore.  I praise God for this group...as I've been wanting to be in a Bible study for some time.  Today's homework was on how every good and perfect gift comes from God...so we were focusing on gifts there, as well.  But I praise God for the gift of this study.

• I praise God for the freedom from some major strongholds that were in my life.

• I praise God for slow mornings, with a cup of coffee, a Bible, a journal, and a blog.

Now...three Hard Eucharisteos:  This will take some explanation...

According to Ann Voskamp, eucharisteo means:

Yes, it's all Greek to me, but this is the word that can change everything: eucharisteo—it comes right out of the Gospel of Luke: “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them…” (Luke 22:19 NIV). In the original language, “he gave thanks” reads “eucharisteo.”

The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning “grace.” Jesus took the bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it to be gift and gave thanks. Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, envelopes the Greek word for grace, charis. But it also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning “joy.” Charis. Grace. Eucharisteo. Thanksgiving. Chara. Joy.

Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo; the table of thanksgiving. The holy grail of joy, God set it in the very center of Christianity. The Eucharist is the central symbol of Christianity. Glynn, doesn’t the continual repetition of beginning our week at the table of the Eucharist clearly place the whole of our lives into the context of thanksgiving?

One of Christ’s very last directives He offers to His disciples is to take the bread, the wine, and to remember. Do this in remembrance of Me. Remember and give thanks.
This is the crux of Christianity: to remember and give thanks, eucharisteo.

Why? Why is remembering and giving thanks the core of the Christ-faith? Because remembering with thanks is what causes us to trust; to really believe. Re-membering, giving thanks, is what makes us a member again of the body of Christ. Re-membering, giving thanks is what puts us back together again in this hurried, broken, fragmented world.

And she also defines the Hard Eucharisteo...or the Hard Thanks ~~

 …take the pain that is given, give thanks for it, and transform it into a joy that fulfills all emptiness. I have glimpsed it: This, the hard eucharisteo. The hard discipline to lean into the ugly and whisper thanks to transfigure it into beauty. The hard discipline to give thanks for all things at all times because He is all good…(Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts)

So here are my three hard Eucharisteos for today...

• Caleb's autism

•  A dead sparrow

• My mother's 12-year disease of vanishing before my eyes...

I may write more specifically about these at another time...but I love this quote from C. S. Lewis:

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.

And that, is grace.  Until tomorrow...