Ann Voskamp famous quotes

Like the wind, Grace finds us wherever we are and won't leave us however we were found.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Wind #Grace #Found

Gratitude is at the center of a life of faith. It sounds to simple to be true, but isn't that the sign of all deep truth: so simple we're tempted to dismiss it, and so hard, it is exactly what God uses to change our hard lives.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Gratitude #Simple #Hard Life

It's habits that can imprison you and it's habits that can free you. But when thanks to God becomes a habit - so joy in God becomes your life.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Joy #Thanks #Habit

Our [people's] very saving is associated with our gratitude. Which follows: if our fall in the garden was ingratitude, then salvation must be intimately related to giving of thanks.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Gratitude #Fall #Garden

...the secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt He is.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Joy #Doubt #Secret

I don't think of myself as an author. But simply as a grateful child of God. John 3:27 has long been a life verse: "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven." Any more words will only be solely a gift from Him. I can only faithfully wait.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Children #Grateful #Men

Your naked body deserves the honor of being shared only with someone who is covenanted to never stop loving your naked soul.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Loving You #Soul #Honor

Expose your life to real need. Visit a developing a country. Take a short term mission trip. Write an inmate, send a letter to a sponsored child, serve in the inner city, at a food bank, with a crisis pregnancy center. Make time for shut-ins, the elderly, the sick, the single-parents, the new believers. Just find one way you can make your awareness of your gift-graced life intersect with a real place of need - and Christ in us will do the rest.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Country #Children #Real

The moment when you are most repelled by a child's behavior, that is your warning light to draw the very closest to that child.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Children #Light #Warning

Busy is a choice. Stress is a choice. Joy is a choice. Choose well.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Stress #Choices #Joy

Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Focus #Simplicity #Matter

Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant—a seed—this plants the giant miracle.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Gratitude #Positivity #Miracle

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

#Fall #Dark #Our World

We only enter into the full life if our faith gives thanks. Because how else do we accept His free gift of salvation if not with thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance of whatever He gives. Thanksgiving is the manifestation of our Yes! to His grace.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Acceptance #Giving #Grace

Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren’t satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Fall #Giving #Hunger

At the last, this is what will determine a fulfilling, meaningful life, a life that, behind all the facades, every one of us longs to live: gratitude for the blessings that expresses itself by becoming the blessing.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Meaningful #Gratitude #Blessing

Hurry always empties a soul.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Soul

All fear is but the notion that God's love ends.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Ends #Notion

God’s purposes are not for me to understand His plans: His plan is for me to understand Who He is.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Purpose #Plans

Living radical isn't about where you live - it's about how you love.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Where You Live #Radical

You were made for the place where your real #‎ passion meets #‎ compassion because there lies your real purpose.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Lying #Real #Passion

God is good and I am always loved.
-- Ann Voskamp

More important than a clean house is a close family.
-- Ann Voskamp

#House #Important #Clean House

Comparison is a thug that robs your joy. But its even more than that - Comparison makes you a thug who beats down somebody - or your soul.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Thug #Joy #Soul

Worry is the facade of taking action when prayer really is.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Prayer #Worry #Action

As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Gratitude #Long #Joy

Being joyful isn't what makes you grateful. Being grateful is what makes you joyful.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Grateful #Be Grateful #Joyful

... be radical about grace and relentless about truth and resolute about holiness...
-- Ann Voskamp

#Inspirational #Grace #Holiness

When we fixate on the worst in something, we render ourselves incapable of fixing anything... But attend to the good in something - and we act towards the best in everything.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Fixing #Worst

Thanksgiving creates abundance; and the miracle of multiplying happens when I give thanks-take the just one loaf, say it is enough, and give thanks-and He miraculously makes it more than enough.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Giving #Miracle #Thanks

Homemaking is about making a home, not about making perfection.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Home #Perfection #Homemaking

Without God’s Word as a lens, the world warps
-- Ann Voskamp

#Lenses #World #Warp

Every time I surrender to stress, aren’t I advertising the unreliability of God?
-- Ann Voskamp

#Stress #Unreliability #Advertising

God is patiently transfiguring all the notes of my life into the song of His Son.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Song #Son #Notes

God doesn't want your leftovers. God wants your love overtures, your first-overs, because He is your first love.
-- Ann Voskamp

#First Love #Want #Leftovers

There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Life #Giving #Add

We were made to live in a posture of grateful worship, and when we live in praise we live our purpose, and all the pieces fall in place, us all falling down in thanks.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Gratitude #Fall #Grateful

The whole of the life -- even the hard -- is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live them out. There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Thanksgiving #Missing #Add

Because One died for me that I might breathe this breath...It's all a gift.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Might #Breathe

Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all those who don't numb themselves to really living.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Pain #Heart #Two

Life is so urgent and necessitates living slow. It's only the amateurs-and that I've been, and it's been ugly-who thinks slow and urgent are contradictory.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Thinking #Ugly #Life Is

God reveals Himself in rearview mirrors. And I've an inkling that there are times when we need to drive a long, long distance, before we can look back and see God's back in the rearview mirror. Maybe sometimes about as far as heaven -- that kind of distance.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Distance #Mirrors #Long

Motherhood is a hallowed place because children aren’t commonplace. Co-laboring over the sculpting of souls is a sacred vocation, a humbling privilege. Never forget.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Children #Motherhood #Soul

You, who were made by Love, made for love-- be still and know and watch love come down.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Love Is #Watches #Made

You can give up the need to compete in the world- when you accept being complete in Christ.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Giving Up #Needs #World

God gives the world enough of what it needs. All He asks is that we distribute what He gives.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Giving #Needs #World

Every moment I live, I live bowed to something. And if I don't see God, I'll bow down before something else.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Bows #Moments

In counting gifts, to one thousand, more, I discover that slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Counting #Brushes #Leaving Me

We want clarity -- and God gives a call. We want a road map --- and God gives a relationship. We want answers -- and God gives His hand.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Hands #Giving #Answers

I am a hunter of beauty and I move slow and I keep the eyes wide, every fiber of every muscle sensing all wonder and this is the thrill of the hunt and I could be an expert on the life full, the beauty meat that lurks in every moment. I hunger to taste life. God.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Moving #Eye #Meat

I want to see beauty. In the ugly, in the sink, in the suffering, in the daily, in all the days before I die, the moments before I sleep.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Sleep #Suffering #Ugly

The prayers we weave into the matching of socks, the stirring of oatmeal, the reading of stories, they survive fire.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Prayer #Reading #Fire

Only speak words that make souls stronger.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Soul #Stronger #Speak

In a world addicted to speed, I blur the moments into one unholy smear.
-- Ann Voskamp

#World #Moments #Speed

In our rushing, bulls in china shops, we break our own lives.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Rushing #Bulls #Break

Sometimes you don’t know when you’re taking the first step through a door until you’re already inside.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Doors #Firsts #Steps

Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Inspirational #Essence #Practice

Only speak words that make souls stronger -\-\ for once words are spoken, they may be forgiven, but may be not forgotten.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Soul #Stronger #May

Praying with eyes wide open is the only way to pray without ceasing.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Eye #Way #Praying

I receive grace. And through me, grace could flow on. Like a cycle of water in continuous movement, grace is meant to fall, a rain...again, again, again. I could share the grace, multiply the joy, extend the table of the feast, enlarge the paradise of His presence. I am blessed. I can bless.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Rain #Blessed #Fall

But, someone, please give me—who is born again but still so much in need of being born anew—give me the details of how to live in the waiting cocoon before the forever begins?
-- Ann Voskamp

#Giving #Waiting #Forever

We're not giving what we're called to give, unless that giving affects how we live - affects what we put on our plate and where we make our home and hang our hat and what kind of threads we've got to have on our back. Surplus Giving is the leftover you can afford to give; Sacrificial Giving is the love gift that changes how you live - because the love of Christ has changed you. God doesn't want your leftovers. God wants your love overtures, your first-overs, because He is your first love.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Home #First Love #Giving

You love as well as you are willing to be inconvenienced.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Wells #Willing

Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing.... Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Lying #Thinking #Rushing

And when I give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Thanksgiving #Gratitude #Grows

When we know Christ, we always know how things are going to go...always for our good and always for His glory.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Christ #Glory

A life contemplating the blessings of Christ becomes a life acting the love of Christ.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Blessing #Acting #Christ

How long does it take your soul to realize that your life is full? The slower the living, the greater the sense of fullness and satisfaction.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Long #Soul #Doe

Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment, a distrust in the love-beat of the Father's heart.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Father #Heart #Ears

You've got to use the life you've been given to give others life
-- Ann Voskamp

#Giving #Use #Given

Stress isn't only a joy stealer. The way we respond to it can be sin.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Stress #Joy #Way

The practice of giving thanks...eucharisteo...this is the way we practice the presence of God, stay present to His presence, and it is always a practice of the eyes. We don't have to change what we see. Only the way we see.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Eye #Practice #Giving

Real joy is not found in having the best of everything but in trusting that God is making the best of everything.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Real #Joy #Found

There are two kinds of doubt: one that fully lives into the questions, and one that uses the questions as weapons against fully living.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Two #Doubt #Use

The true Love Dare. To move into His presence and listen to His love unending and know the grace uncontainable. This is the vault of the miracles. The only thing that can change us, the world, is this- all His love.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Moving #Miracle #Grace

When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us?
-- Ann Voskamp

#Rain #Broken #Joy

I don't really want more time; I just want enough time. Time to breathe deep and time to see real and time to laugh long, time to give You glory and rest deep and sing joy and just enough time in a day not to feel hounded, pressed, driven, or wild to get it all done-yesterday.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Real #Yesterday #Long

Real Womanhood isn’t a function of becoming a great mother, but of being loved by your Great Father.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Mother #Father #Real

Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Reality #Giving #Joy

Thanksgiving-giving thanks in everything-prepares the way that God might show us His fullest salvation in Christ.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Thanksgiving #Might #Way

The cynics, they can only speak of the dark, of the obvious, and this is not hard. For all it’s supposed sophistication, it’s cynicism that’s simplistic. In a fallen world, how profound is to see the cracks? The sages and prophets, the disciples and revolutionaries, they are the ones up on the ramparts, up on the wall pointing to the dawn of the new Kingdom coming, pointing to the light that breaks through all things broken, pointing to redemption always rising and to the Blazing God who never sleeps.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Wall #Sleep #Dark

In a storm of struggles, I have tried to control the elements, clasp the fist tight so as to protect self and happiness. But stress can be an addiction, and worry can be our lunge for control, and we forget the answer to this moment is always yes because of Christ.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Stress #Struggle #Self

Giving thanks is that: making the canyon of pain into a megaphone to proclaim the ultimate goodness of God when Satan and all the world would sneer at us to recant.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Pain #Giving #World

When grief is deepest, words are fewest.
-- Ann Voskamp

#Grief