I could BE the joy!

This is absolutely amazing. Every mother needs to read this!
From pages 193 and 194 of "One thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp


" God calls me to DO thanks. To give the thanks away. That thanks-giving might literally become thanks-living. That our lives become the very blessings we have received.
I am blessed.
 I can bless.
 Imagine!
 I could let Him make ME the gift!

I could be the joy!

I scour pots and grin silly: I can wash feet here by washing dishes. My heart can enter into communcion anywhere and anywhere my hands can encact thanksgiving. The tap water runs hot over my hands and I rinse steel. The world gleams. Christ's ministry began with His miracle of turning water into wine at the marriage feast in Cana. And at the close of His earthly ministry, Christ turns from the wine of the Last Supper back to the water, the water for washing of feet....

Scratching a stubborn pot furiously with a wire scrubby,  I remember it again, what I once read of liturgy. That liturgy has its roots in the Greet word leitorgia, meaning 'public work' or 'public servant.' The meaning! This life of washing dishes, of domestic routine, it can be something wholly different. This life of rote work, it is itself public work, a public serving--- even this scrubbing of pans- and thus, if done unto God, the mundane work can become the living liturgy of the Last Supper.
 I could become the blessing, live the liturgy!
I rinse pots and sing it softly, "This is my song of thanks to You..."
In the moment of singing that one line, dedicating the work as thanks to Him, something- the miracle- happens, and every time. When service is unto people, the bones can grow weary, the frustration deep.

 Because, agrees Dorothy Sayers, "Whenever man in made the centre of things, he becomes the storm- centre of trouble. The moment you think of serving people, you begin to have a notion that other people owe you something for your pains... You will begin to bargain for reward, to angle for applause."


When the laundry is done for the dozen arms of children or the dozen legs, it's true, I think I'm due for some appreciation. So comes a storm of trouble and lightning strikes joy.

 But when Christ is at the center, when dishes, laundry, work, is my song of thanks to Him, joy rains. Passionately serving Christ alone makes us the loving servant of all. When the eyes of the heart focus on God, and the hands on always washing the feet of Jesus alone-- the bones, they sing joy, and the work becomes worship, a liturgy of thankfulness.

"The work we do is only our love for Jesus in action," writes Mother Teresa. "If we pray the work... if we do it to Jesus, if we do it for Jesus, if we do it with Jesus.... that's what makes us content."