Settle in. Stay put a minute. Because this is your life. And these are your blanks.

How would you fill them in? What’s that one thing that pulls your attention, the thing that, left undone, would eat at you if your time here was coming to a close?

I’m thinking about my own blanks as I celebrate another year on this beautiful, spinning blue ball. Another birthday. Life and living it. 2,440 blessed days. Not all of them easy, to be sure, but all of them blessed. I haven’t done everything I had planned to with the last 365 of those days. I’ve squandered some of my precious time, something I suppose is easily done if we’re not careful, if we don’t have reminders. Like this.

I love that this photo happened entirely on a whim with zero idea that I would end up framed in sunshine. I was on my own and snapped it simply to remind myself… and you… to think about our impermanence, our deep desires, and to do something most every day to move toward satisfying whatever it is we each would write in these blank spaces.

So I propped my phone on my car, set the timer and ran to be with this message, and, as so often happens when we go deep and connect, magic happens. I didn’t see them until I looked at this photo hours later, but look at the pair of sunbeams that somehow frames me perfectly even though I hadn’t seen them. It’s like I stepped into More, Bigger, Deeper and God tapped me on the shoulder and said, with a playful presence, “Hey there! Here I am! You do see me… right?”

It shouldn’t surprise me any more when God shows up, but somehow it does. I know these experiences aren’t just for the recipient’s benefit. They are to be shared. It’s Divine encouragement that says, in this case, “Get out there. Do your thing.” What ever that thing is, whatever your calling or goal, whatever is yet to be said or done. Do it.

Fill in the blanks. Then let this be the first day you move toward taking action. I’m doing it, too. This, dear ones, is how we celebrate living. This is the intersection where God shows up.