'one thousand gifts'

Have you heard about this best seller?

My sister gave me a copy and she thinks it is terrific and I trust my sister and so, here I am, attempting to read this book that everyone is raving about. But I am not feeling my best and so it is hard for me to glean any good out of anything.

I don't know whether it is

1. the rebellious side of my character or
2. my bipolar

but... I tend not to like some things that 'everyone'  thinks so highly of. I seldom get caught up in trends. Sometimes I am convinced there is something wrong with me (even more than the bipolar) and I have spent most of my life feeling that I am not like most people.

Do you ever feel that way?

And when something like this book comes out, and everyone whose opinion I value is raving about it, I feel obligated to give it a try, and yet.... there it is again, that old "I really don't know what the big deal is about" voice.

But, that could be a depression voice speaking and so I am persevering with this lovely book.

Currently I am feeling a little discouraged about my blog and my writing and am wondering why I ever thought I wanted to do it in the first place (negative depression voices) and yet, I know that most of the time I love blogging and most of the time I love writing. So I tell myself  'don't do anything rash' which, my natural bipolar self is inclined to do.

When I am in a poor state of mind I usually want to change something, move to a different house or country,  or quit something, quit everything - you get the idea.

CHANGE, QUIT, MOVE...REPEAT.................

But I am not going to quit this book and so, this  morning as I found myself on page 49, I finally found some words that spoke to me personally:

"... the picking up of a pen isn't painful and ink can be cheap medicine."

"Well, thank you Lord! Even with my fuzzy head, negative thinking, headaches from too much reading, thank you for helping me get to some words that I can truly identify with, that meet my needs and my thought patterns at this very moment."

And, that is what I find happens to me a lot of the time. If I can prevent myself from doing something rash, (ie. throwing the book away) and if I can persevere just a little bit, if I can ignore the quiting voices, the 'this is all stupid' voices, I can sometimes find a little gem in this big confusing world.

And sometimes, more often than not, it doesn't take much to correct or change or soothe my negative thinking. However, I have to do my part to fight those voices.

Maybe this new book "one thousand gifts" would suit you? By the way the whole idea of the book is to find 1000 reasons to be thankful. She challenges the reader to start a list and keep going until you have 1000 reasons to be thankful, or '1000 gifts'. I do know this. The author Ann Voskamp, is no stranger to human tragedy, and she is fully experienced with depression, and so here is someone who sort of 'gets it'...I guess.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?  How are you feeling today? Do you have a constant battle with negative thoughts? Do you have sources that help you correct those negative thoughts?

Don't give up! There is hope for depression.