Make Today Count

Gratitude Year 4 - Day 126: I am grateful we can make today count. 

I did not create this image, but it inspires me to try this kind of mixed media. I found it on Pinterest. I looked to credit the artist, but did not find a name. I do love whimsy and this piece is full of it. Yet, it was the four simple words that jumped off the image and offered me a challenge. 

"She made today count."

It is a powerful statement. It, somehow, seems like a the knot you can tie at the end of the rope when you need to hold on. Life is spinning really fast with typical May madness. There are choices to be made. There are seasons we can't do it all. We simply do our best and make the day count. 

My "one little word" for this year is vision. Seeing through the madness of busy seasons to make the moments count. The important moments. This weekend is full of important moments. 

This weekend - a young man, named Blake Leander, graduates from college. I did not give birth to him, but he is part mine. I am truly impressed with his accomplishments, since the past two years have been a season of loss and change. I am humbled and honored to be there watching His big moment. I am thrilled that his graduating class includes his cousin, my cousin and the children of some life long friends. He will be surrounded by family and friends...including his Dad, who happens to be one of the best men I know.  His brother, uncle and grandfather are pretty special men, too, who will be cheering him on as he receives his diploma. It will be a big day.

Blake has a people who love him. People who support him. But, when life got tough...he made the life choices that took him down the path to college success. He chose good friends. He chose to serve youth with a local Campus Life club...and invest in youth the way others invested in him. When the going got tough, he knew the power source that would provide him with help and strength. I warned him I am going to cry. Don't tell him I've already started. He has honored his mother's memory with his choices in the first leg of his life's journey since she has been gone.

My prayer is that Blake will remember this season not for the tough struggles, but for the strength he found in the midst of the madness. He plugged into the power source, knowing that His God could not, would not fail him. He didn't. 

If I were find a Life Verse for Blake in this season, it would be this one:

"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. "For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." - 2 Corinthians 12:9-10


Blake stepped out of his comfort zone and made the moments count. He made great grades. He didn't let the moments of fear, grief or weakness be a reason to quit. He made each day count. More importantly, he let Christ's strength be his power source. Maybe, I can shed the tears this morning and keep it together on graduation day. They are good tears. So if they fall...let them fall. 

May madness is in full swing, but it is the moments that matter. I don't want to lose the beauty in the busy. 

Today,  I am grateful we can make today count.