Discover how slowing down to notice small daily gifts can transform your experience of simplicity. A gentle reflection on gratitude, presence, and the quiet joy hidden in everyday life.
The Gift of Simplicity
There’s a quiet irony to the season we’re in.
Everything around us says hurry—hurry to prepare, hurry to finish, hurry to catch up before the year ends. Yet simplicity is whispering something else entirely.
It’s whispering look.
Look at what is already here.
Look at where you already stand.
Look at the gifts hidden in the ordinary, the overlooked, the now.
Recently I’ve been reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, and her words have given language to something I’ve been noticing for a long time:
life is always made up of two storylines running side by side.
There is trouble, yes.
There is beauty, too.
There is sorrow.
And there is wonder.
There is what breaks our hearts.
And what breaks us open.
Both exist at the same time.
And simplicity—the deep kind, the spiritual kind—begins when we choose to see the whole picture instead of only one part.
Raised to See Scarcity… Learning to See Otherwise
I grew up shaped by the shadow of the Great Depression, raised by someone who carried the memory of not-enough down into the bones. Layered over that were the rigid religious frameworks of my childhood. Together, those formed a worldview that was cautious, watchful, bracing for the worst. Gratitude didn’t come naturally. Joy certainly didn’t.
Even now, as an adult, my first reaction to hardship is often lament.
(And sometimes it’s loud lament. Sackcloth-and-ashes level lament.)
But loss or fear or frustration being my first instinct doesn’t mean they have to be my final response.
Science tells us our brains are more malleable than we once believed.
And spiritually, many of us know this already: we can return, again and again, to the practices that shape the heart from the inside out.
Gratitude is one of them.
Seeing the Gift in What Already Is
One of the ideas from the book that stopped me in my tracks was this simple truth:
Life doesn’t change when we get what we want.
Life changes when we notice what we already have.
That noticing—this quiet, deep seeing—is where simplicity lives.
It’s not about clearing out your closet (though that may help).
It’s not about saying no to every commitment.
It’s not even about living with less.
Simplicity is about living with attention.
And gratitude is what brings that attention into focus.
Voskamp calls gratitude the root of joy.
Not a bonus feeling when life goes well.
Not an add-on emotion for the optimistic.
A root.
A foundation.
A way of seeing.
Life Is Not an Emergency
One of the lines I loved:
Life is not an emergency.
How often do we live as if it is?
Rushing.
Panicking.
Doing five things at once.
Checking the clock.
Feeling behind before the day even begins.
Simplicity begins when we gently step out of that posture.
Gratitude helps us do that.
Because gratitude slows us down long enough to receive what is happening right now—just this—without rushing into the next moment.
A Small Practice With a Big Impact
In the book, Voskamp began a simple challenge:
find one thousand things to be grateful for.
Ordinary things.
Everyday things.
Not dramatic miracles.
Just small graces that slipped into the day unnoticed.
This practice became a way of grounding herself in the present.
A way of seeing God in the details.
A way of returning to joy—not a surface-level happiness, but a deep, rooted, steady joy.
And the truth is:
joy is ordinary before it’s extraordinary.
It begins with learning to see.
Sometimes Gratitude Is Hard
Let’s be honest: sometimes gratitude feels impossible.
When life is overwhelming.
When the news is heavy.
When our bodies are tired.
When our hearts are tender.
When life doesn’t go the way we hoped.
There are seasons when gratitude feels less like a warm glow and more like obedience.
A posture of trust.
A quiet surrender.
There’s a reason the ancient question echoes in us:
“Should we accept good… and not trouble?”
Real simplicity doesn’t deny trouble.
It simply refuses to let trouble be the only thing we see.
**The Gift in the Simple Moment:
Being a Work in Progress**
I’ll be honest: I finished the book inspired, ready to be instantly transformed.
And then life happened.
Something unexpected came up, and without skipping a beat, I reverted to my factory settings—frustration, overwhelm, internal chaos.
But later, when things calmed down, I saw the contrast:
my desire to live in gratitude and joy…
and my very human reaction when tested.
And maybe that’s the real gift of simplicity.
Not getting it perfect.
Not being serene every moment.
Not becoming the person who is always calm and centered.
But becoming the person who returns.
Again and again.
Softening.
Re-seeing.
Remembering what we know but often forget.
Maybe the true gift of simplicity is this:
being willing to be a work in progress.
A Gentle Invitation
This week, if you feel led, begin your own quiet list.
It doesn’t need to reach a thousand.
Just begin with one.
Notice one small gift.
Then another.
Then another.
Let gratitude help you see what is already good, already holy, already right in front of you.
Simplicity begins there.
-laura