A secret garden tucked away into the backyard of a widow- alive with geese and chickens and vines of colorful flowers draping down from the tin roof of the farmhouse
A plantation rich with coffee beans and avocados with an elderly man in a cowboy hat pouring our hospitality and walking us through every row of bushes- despite the fact that we are complete strangers
Rolling orchards with crops neatly in a row complemented with talk trees that spring forth purple blossoms radiant against the sky
Xenacoj is a Guatemalan mountain village populated with hospitable people with the warmest of spirits. Many people here live on two dollars or less a day. Many women are widows. Many children are orphans. Many young students have to drop out of school to help support their families. There is one doctor in the town which few can afford to go to.
We visited several widows this week, and what I learned through one of them is that these living conditions are not the tragedies that eat away at people; the tragedy is the same thing that you or I can be vulnerable to: the failure to recognize beauty. We only have one life here on earth, and each moment is fleeting. Wouldn’t it be a tragedy to not live it wholeheartedly?
Juana is 92-years-old, yet her health far surpasses those of the younger widows. A lot of people her age are withering away waiting to die, but she embraces the moments that she sees with beauty. She is a testimony for Proberbs 16:14 which says: “Gracious words are a clover of honey- sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”
She has lost two husbands and suffered the trauma of burying her own child, yet she glows with life. She is the kind of person whose presence draws people to herself like a magnet. She proudly showed off her colorful stitch work to us, she sang a song for us, and she told us that she talks to Jesus every morning, and she thinks that’s why she has so much joy.
Juana enters into the Lord’s courts every morning through the vehicle of thankfulness and cultivates riches of joy and peace. Instead of looking at her losses, she chooses to look at her giver. I meet so many people who have more than everything that would meet Juana’s physical needs- medical care, vitamins, a heated room, but they live in poverty much more than she does, because they fail to recognize blessings.
This woman glows because she lives a life of what Ann Voskamp would call: “eucharisteo” which means to be grateful or to give thanks. It is the Greek used countless times in the New Testament when people offer up their gratitude. The root word is “charis” which means “grace”, and the derivative of that is “char” which means “joy.” I find this interesting, because it shows that the one who gives thanks sees the small piece of grace, chooses to be joyful about it, and releases that bit of joy which has the power to change the atmosphere.
Gratitude is the hand that pumps living waters of joy into our hearts. It is the melody that makes the birds sing in the blazing sun and through the raging storms. Once it is planted, it multiplies in tenfold choking out the emptiness and darkness. Voskamp says in her book: “When I give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me.”
In Luke 22:19, Jesus who knows his crucifixion is just around the corner breaks the bread and gives thanks- eucharisteo. He gives this grace and joy to his disciples and essentially tells them that he wants them to offer thankfulness when they remember him.
In Luke 17:16, one of the ten men who were healed from their skin diseases fell on his face to give thanks- eucharisteo. To this, Jesus tells him that his faith has made him well. When he offered thanks, we has already healed, but his thankfulness released so much more life for him.
Being in a moment without being thankful is not really living; it’s simply existing. A lack of gratitude is like wearing a black veil that dims the way we see and perceive life. Eucharisteo is a very powerful weapon against unnecessary pain and emptiness. With emotional emptiness, the problem is rarely what the circumstance is but rather the lack of gratitude within a person.
Through her lifestyle, Juana has challenged me to offer the same thankfulness that brings her joy in every circumstance and pours life into the dead soil of despair. In turn, I am challenging you to adopt this lifestyle. Exhaust gratitude until it becomes second nature. It will turn what you have into more than enough. It will turn your feeling of emptiness and loneliness into a cup overflowing. It will make you glow with eucharisteo.
