Giving thanks // a little announcement

Back in October, I started reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, which is so much more than a book that you might read and then forget about. It is a call to live fully in every single day of our lives - not just the joy filled days - but the mundane, grief filled and downright difficult times in life - through giving thanks to God in all things. One of the ways that I like to celebrate life in both the small and beautifully ordinary moments, as well as those moments in life of greater significance, is through taking photos and sharing them on this little space & Instagram. Because photos can speak so much more of the profundity of beauty than any words that I could ever conjure. 

So, I have been thinking a lot about giving thanks, as the words of One Thousand Gifts  have been circling my heart, and all the more so with the approach of the American holiday of Thanksgiving. While this is not a holiday we celebrate in England, we share life with some wonderful Americans and Canadians, who have brought this celebration of giving thanks over to the UK, and for the first time last year, we shared in a wonderful Thanksgiving feast with a great gathering of friends. Whereas once upon a time, I was oblivious to when this celebration took place for Americans, it has now become an annual tradition, which John and I look forward to with great eagerness. As the sun rose on the morning of Thursday 28th November, there were a few things going through my mind. One of those things was that today was the day that Americans would celebrate Thanksgiving.

Another of the thoughts in my head as the sun rose is that this would be a particularly significant day of Thanks Giving for us. For it would be the day that our daughter would be born, as I was enveloped deep in the process of labour as the sun rose in the morning sky. On this day, we would get to meet the precious little life that we have been giving thanks to God for over the last nine months, and the moment we would meet would be greeted with the crescendo of our ever-growing thankfulness to God for the blessing of a daughter. And so it is with great joy and Thanksgiving that I can share with you that our daughter, Ruby Elizabeth, was born on Thursday 28th November.