Learning for Lifetime

I saw it as I left our local YMCA last night. It sits in a garden just outside the new teen center. The sign says, "In Memory of {insert name here}, A Life Well Lived". Those last four words have been marinating in my mind ever since. A Live Well Lived.

At first I thought, "Wow! Those are definitely words that I would love to have said about me someday." Who wouldn't? I mean to really think that someone's life was so well lived that others would notice and say it about them is quite an honor. Then I started to think just what that means to have a "life well lived". And I realized that it's not something that people "might say" after I've gone...but it's something that could be said about us each and everyday.

Soooo....my Thursday Thirteen today consists of thirteen things that I think could mark a life well lived in no particular order:

1. Loving, and being loved, by another human being. There is no greater joy than to know that someone finds you special and wants to spend time with you.

2. Knowing God intimately and understanding the height, and depth, and breadth of His amazing GRACE!

3. Laughing a lot! Finding the joy in each and every day is so important. And laughing is but one way this joy manifests itself in our lives.

4. Having visions and dreams...and going for them. I don't think you necessarily have to "achieve" them, but the simple act of persuing those things that make us passionate means we aren't letting life pass us by.

5. Learning new things each and every day. Whether its a new art form, reading a new book, making a new friend, we need to learn more and more about the world around us each and every day.

6. Taking risks. This is not the "put-your-life-on-the-line" risks. But it is allowing ourselves...no...pushing ourselves beyond our own limits. It's stretching to be more than you are today and more than you thought you could or would be.

7. Recognizing and breathing in the beauty in our world. This means we have to get out and see it. Again, I don't think this means we have to travel to the edge earth...but we do have to stop and "smell the roses" in our own corner of the world once in a while.

8. Learning not to sweat the small stuff. I think this is critical! It is so important that several books have been written in recent years about this very thing. When we fret and worry over the minute and mundane, we miss so much!

9. Extend forgiveness where it needs to be extended. This is hard. I have learned, though, that bitterness, frustration, and anger held inside only hurts the person who houses it all. When we seek to forgive those who hurt us, there is freedom.

10. In the same way we extend forgiveness, I think we need to learn to ask for forgiveness when necessary. We live in a society where it's easy to find fault in the lives and actions of others. To recognize our own role in disagreements is hard, but also a learning experience.

11. Smile. It sounds simple, doesn't it? I can't believe how many times I look around at people with "screwed up" faces. I mean they are actually scrunched up, brows furrowed, and mouth in a permanent frown.

12. Dance and sing. I don't know that we have to "actually" DO both of these things. But I know that music is a healer. It can fill our souls and bring us so much joy if we let it. It's freeing when we let music fill our souls. It's healing when we learn to move and "dance" to the music that is in our world.

13. Live in the moment. Certainly I believe we need to look ahead, but that must be balanced by living today to the best of our ability. It's also easy to look back and think of everything we haven't done or that we missed. May we all strike that balance where we can live in the moment, hope for the future and rejoice in the past.

And may each of us lead "A Life Well Lived"!

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