Ann Voskamp Quotes

#1. Girls rival each other. Women revive each other.
Girls empale each other. Women empower each other.
Girls compare each other. Women champion each other.

Ann Voskamp

#2. What she means? Sure, whatever. It's not like I thought that this is the carving, the flying, the healing of my wounds. Sometimes you don't know when you're

Ann Voskamp

#3. Work-worn, on a gingham towel draped over the cupboard. "All of them stillborn." I smother a sigh with a smile, weak and resigned. He takes it regardless. "Yeah ... " He too smiles soft, a hand letting

Ann Voskamp

#4. A pantheist's god is a passive god, but omnipresent God is Beauty who demands worship, passion, and the sacrifice of a life, for He owns it.

Ann Voskamp

#5. larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it.

Ann Voskamp

#6. Are stress and worry evidence of a soul too lazy, too undisciplined, to keep gaze fixed on God?

Ann Voskamp

#7. Communion, by necessity, always leads us into community.

Ann Voskamp

#8. A day is a pocket of possibility and it's always there, waiting for your willing hand.

Ann Voskamp

#9. All God makes is good. Can it be that that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God?

Ann Voskamp

#10. Once you have tasted conviction, you can't bear to keep swallowing complacency.

Ann Voskamp

#11. The act of sacrificing thank offerings to God - even for the bread and cup of cost, for cancer and crucifixion - this prepares the way for God to show us His fullest salvation from bitter, angry, resentful lives and from all sin that

Ann Voskamp

#12. If I don't have words, it's a sign I'm not reading enough.

Ann Voskamp

#13. I know I can't experience deep joy in God until I deep trust in God.

Ann Voskamp

#14. God gives the world enough of what it needs. All He asks is that we distribute what He gives.

Ann Voskamp

#15. How do I wake up to joy and grace and beauty and all that is the fullest life when I must stay numb to losses and crushed dreams and all that empties me out?

Ann Voskamp

#16. Pantheism, seeing the natural world as divine, is a very different thing than seeing divine God present in all things

Ann Voskamp

#17. 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

#18. Is that why joy hurts
God stretching us open to receive more of Himself?

Ann Voskamp

#19. When the church isn't for the suffering and broken, then the church isn't for Christ. Because Jesus, with His pierced side, is always on the side of the broken.

Ann Voskamp

#20. I don't want a Christmas you can buy. I don't want a Christmas you can make. What I want is a Christmas you can hold. A Christmas that holds me, remakes me, revives me. I want a Christmas that whispers, Jesus.

Ann Voskamp

#21. 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

#22. I didn't start with any specific steps, but through this intentional, daily practice of giving thanks, I found myself on a transformative journey that affected every aspect of my life - including all the broken places.

Ann Voskamp

#23. This day is not a sieve, losing time. With each passing minute, each passing year, there's this deepening awareness that I am filling, gaining time. We stand on the brink of eternity.

Ann Voskamp

#24. This counting blessings was the unlocking of the mystery of joy, joy, "the gigantic secret of the Christian," joy hiding in gratitude ... God had used the dare to give me this; led me all he way to give me this, live fully, fully live. Page 83

Ann Voskamp

#25. The real romantics imagine greying and sagging and wrinkling as the deepening of something sacred.

Ann Voskamp

#26. The art of giving is believing there is enough love in you, that you are loved enough by Him, to be made enough love to give. For

Ann Voskamp

#27. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs (Zephaniah 3:17). He sings love! In the air, over

Ann Voskamp

#28. Gratitude is not only a response to God in good times - it's ultimately the very will of God in hard times. Gratitude isn't only a celebration when good things happen. It's a declaration that God is good no matter what happens.

Ann Voskamp

#29. Just that maybe ... maybe you don't want to change the story, because you don't know what a different ending holds.

Ann Voskamp

#30. Christian hands never clasp and He doesn't give gifts for gain because a gift can never stop being a gift
it is always meant to be given.

Ann Voskamp

#31. Sometimes, too often, I don't want to muster the energy. Stress and anxiety seem easier.

Ann Voskamp

#32. Thanksgiving is inherent to a true salvation experience; thanksgiving is necessary to live the well, whole, 'fullest' life.

Ann Voskamp

#33. War destroys more than cities - it destroys generations of dreams and hopes and education and possibility.

Ann Voskamp

#34. Wherever you are, be all there is only possible in the posture of eucharisteo. I want to slow down and taste life, give thanks, and see God.

Ann Voskamp

#35. In naming that which is right before me, that which I'd otherwise miss, the invisible becomes visible.

Ann Voskamp

#36. Take the pain that is given, give thanks for it, and transform it into a joy that fulfills all emptiness.

Ann Voskamp

#37. 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

#38. Sometimes you don't know when you're taking the first step through a door until you're already inside.

Ann Voskamp

#39. I write a chapter, then edit it and edit it and edit it and edit it. I don't think we mine creativity from within. It's bestowed from on high, from God.

Ann Voskamp

#40. Real Love truthfully sees the flaws - and still really loves fully.

Ann Voskamp

#41. 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

#42. The one who lives her life in circles, discovering, entering into, forgetting and losing, finding her way round again, living her life in layers
deeper, round, further in. I know 'eucharisteo' and the miracle. But I am not a woman who ever lives the full knowing.

Ann Voskamp

#43. Every mountain that every Christian ever faces, the Lord levels with sufficient grace.

Ann Voskamp

#44. The answer to deep anxiety is the deep adoration of God.

Ann Voskamp

#45. You've got to use the life you've been given to give others life

Ann Voskamp

#46. Be radical about grace and relentless about truth and resolute about holiness ...

Ann Voskamp

#47. I redeem time from neglect and apathy and inattentiveness when I swell with thanks and weigh the moment down and it's giving thanks to God for this moment that multiplies the moments, time made enough. I am thank-full. I am time-full.

Ann Voskamp

#48. He means to rename us
to return us to our true names, our truest selves. He means to heal our soul holes. From the very beginning, that Eden beginning, that has always been and always is, to this day, His secret purpose
our return to 'our full glory'.

Ann Voskamp

#49. Learning slowly to not be so reactionary while inserting verbal gratitude into stressful situations is almost like being healed of mental blindness.

Ann Voskamp

#50. I'm Peter on the mountaintop, stirring to see The Glory in all its God-radiance, stammering out that it's good to be here; let's build shelters and never depart. But there's always the descent from the mount. The meeting of the crowd, the complaining, the cursing. Page 124

Ann Voskamp

#51. A simplified Christmas isn't about circumstances as much as it is about focus.

Ann Voskamp

#52. The life that counts blessings discovers its yielding more than it seems.

Ann Voskamp

#53. 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

#54. Because One died for me that I might breathe this breath ... It's all a gift.

Ann Voskamp

#55. When grief is deepest, words are fewest.

Ann Voskamp

#56. To live either fully alive ... or in empty nothingness? It's the in between that drives us mad.

Ann Voskamp

#57. Because nothing is greater and we have no greater need, God gives God.

Ann Voskamp

#58. Looking is the love. Looking is evidence of the believing.

Ann Voskamp

#59. When the purity of Jesus lies over a heart, His transparency burns the cataracts off the soul. The only way to see God manifested in the world around is with the eyes of Jesus within.

Ann Voskamp

#60. But the Lord draws near to Samuel: The LORD doesn't see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.

Ann Voskamp

#61. Time, what God first deemed holy above all else (Genesis 2:3). Thank God for the time, and very God enters that time, presence hallowing it ... I awake to I AM here. When I'm present, I meet I AM, the very presence of a present God. (page 70)

Ann Voskamp

#62. Until we call attention to the moments of our lives, we miss our lives.

Ann Voskamp

#63. If the Church is a body, and the body is a business, isn't that the same thing as prostitution?

Ann Voskamp

#64. 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

#65. Faith is in the gaze of a soul. Faith is seeing soul's eyes upon a saving God.

Ann Voskamp

#66. He must increase and I must decrease
not because that is burden but do that my joy might increase with more of Him!

Ann Voskamp

#67. Losses do that. One life-loss can infect the whole of a life. Like a rash that wears through our days, our sight becomes peppered with black voids. Now everywhere we look, we only see all that isn't: holes, lack, deficiency.

Ann Voskamp

#68. God gives us time. And who has time for God?

Ann Voskamp

#69. God is always good and we are always loved ... even when what He gives may appear ugly.

Ann Voskamp

#70. Having Christian convictions can't ever negate having Christ's compassion.

Ann Voskamp

#71. Every breath is a battle between grudgery and gratitude. Give thanks ... and you win joy.

Ann Voskamp

#72. Thanks is what multiplies the joy and makes any life large, and I hunger for it.

Ann Voskamp

#73. The prayers we weave into the matching of socks, the stirring of oatmeal, the reading of stories, they survive fire.

Ann Voskamp

#74. It's impossible to give thanks and simultaneously feel fear

Ann Voskamp

#75. If the heights of our joy are measured by the depths of our gratitude, and gratitude is but a way of seeing, a spiritual perspective of smallness might offer a vital way of seeing especially conducive to gratitude

Ann Voskamp

#76. Could it be - no one receives the peace of God without giving thanks to God? Is thankfulness really but the deep, contented breath of peacefulness? Is this why God asks us to give thanks even when things look a failure? When there doesn't seem much to give thanks for?

Ann Voskamp

#77. While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.

Ann Voskamp

#78. He withhold that which I believe will fully nourish me? Why do I live in this sense of rejection, of less than, of pain? Does He not want me to be happy?

Ann Voskamp

#79. When we know Christ, we always know how things are going to go ... always for our good and always for His glory.

Ann Voskamp

#80. Worry is the facade of taking action when prayer really is.

Ann Voskamp

#81. Without expectations, what can topple the surprising wonder of the moment?

Ann Voskamp

#82. Instead of filling with expectations, the joy-filled expect nothing
and are filled.

Ann Voskamp

#83. Thankfully, God never gives us what is deserved ...

Ann Voskamp

#84. The joy of the Lord is your strength and the person of Christ is your unassailable joy - and the battle for joy is nothing less than fighting the good fight of faith.

Ann Voskamp

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

Ann Voskamp

#86. I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment.

Ann Voskamp

#87. Satan's sin becomes the first sin of all humanity: the sin of ingratitude.

Ann Voskamp

#88. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will.

Ann Voskamp

#89. Lord God, I claim Christ as my bridge back to You and I trust the Bridge Builder to hold all the moments of my life - and me. Remind me today, Lord, to give thanks to You for always holding. I am relieved of the burdens when I've believed in the Bridge Builder.

Ann Voskamp

#90. He is perfect love and His perfect love kicks fear to the curb.

Ann Voskamp

#91. The frame of a soul was never made for fame. The frame of a soul was made to serve.

Ann Voskamp

#92. I fly to Paris and discover how to make love to God.

Ann Voskamp

#93. When the heart and mind focus on things unseen - that's when there's a visible change in us.

Ann Voskamp

#94. 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

#95. Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perserverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?

Ann Voskamp

#96. The real romantics are the boring ones - they let another heart bore a hole deep into theirs.

Ann Voskamp

#97. I speak the unseen into seeing and I can feel it, this steady breathing in the rhythm of grace
'give thanks (in), give thanks (out)'.

Ann Voskamp

#98. I wear the lens of the Word and all the world transfigures into the Beauty of Christ and 'everything is eucharisteo'.

Ann Voskamp

#99. Life is dessert - too brief to hurry ... "Where ever you are, be all there" is only possible with eucharisteo. Slow down and taste life, give thanks, and see God. Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus. Eucharisteo keeps the focus. Page 77

Ann Voskamp

#100. Isn't falling in love always the fullest life?

Ann Voskamp