Urgent Need: As the back-to-school season begins, families are facing mounting pressure—tough choices, cultural confusion, and strained relationships.
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Catch glimpses of the miraculous in unexpected places.
When 9-year-old Malakai rushes into our living room and stands with both hands on his hips in front of the Christmas tree, I know what’s going to howl in here next.
“Why don’t we do big gifts?” The boy’s a moaning wind.
How in the world does a mother turn a child’s storm of discontent?
And who am I really kidding? The whole climate of the season can have gusts of unexpected envy. And I wonder why the garland up our stairs looks like a worn-out, green twist tie when compared to the ones in the glossy magazines.
I kneel beside my boy and pull him near.
“You know, no one can wrap up anything that compares to the glory of God,” I whisper as he leans into me. It’s funny how this happens: I’m preaching to myself, the child and I both in need of grace and truth.
“How did God choose to come to earth?” I ask.
“As a baby.” Malakai says it quiet into his hand under his chin, says it like a muffled snow.
I nod. “Jesus came as a wee baby — and isn’t He the greatest gift of all?”
Gratitude for the small — this is the seed that plants the giant miracle in the midst of it all.
“Tell you what. I’m ‘joy daring’ you. Make a list! Not of gifts you want, but of gifts we already have — a gratitude list for all God’s gifts to us. A list counting all the ways our great God loves us in the small.”
“Like the snowflakes on the windowsill.” Malakai is taking the joy dare. “Like the little red holly berries.”
And that’s what he and I do every day. We dare each other to hunt for the glory of God in the small and ordinary, and each night we tell of the gifts we found. What could be a greater gift than joy?
Malakai, he laughs it happy to me one evening, “You know, Mom? I think we do big gifts around here: We’re counting all God’s gifts!”
And I hear the wind, how it blows in one miraculous flake upon flake, and there is this slowing down and waking up to the glory of God in the small — all these moments stacking up to one wondrous life.
—Ann Voskamp is the mother of six and author of the New York Times best-seller One Thousand Gifts: A dare to live fully right where you are.
Ann Voskamp is the author of several New York Times best-selling books including One Thousand Gifts, which has sold more than a million copies and has been translated into 22 languages, Unwrapping the Greatest Gift, and The Broken Way. She has written articles that have been published in several major publications and was featured in Christianity Today as one of the 50 leading women who are most shaping the culture and church today. Ann and her husband have seven children. Learn more about her at her website, annvoskamp.com.
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