I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I've seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks... Why would the world need more anger, more outrage?
How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is the joy that saves us?
Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering. The converse does.
The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and the now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world.
When we lay the soil of our hard lives open in 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? The clouds open when we mouth thanks."
- Ann Voskamp, "One Thousand Gifts"
