A Life Well Lived.

This was Saturday. A pretty perfect day filled with laughter, celebration, and new experiences. 

Family on Saturday comprised of Jason and I, our son, one of his best friends at school, my parents, and my sister and brother-in-law.

We spent our day visiting Dillon at school, #gowildcats, attending our very first ACU Sing Song performance (Google it, it's college co-eds and Pitch Perfect with enough Jesus to keep it PG), and celebrating my Dad's 3rd-ish 22nd birthday. 

                

In all honesty, we were all pretty shocked when my dad actually mounted that saddle, albeit a bit reluctantly, in the middle of the restaurant while my son belted out the Texas Roadhouse Birthday Song at the top of his lungs. 

While reflecting on the day and all of the fun during our road trip home, my dad did what he does so well and hit us all with a quick shot of truth. 

If you knew him at all, you would understand he embodies the phrase "a man of few words" perfectly. You would know that he is one of those people who reserves his words for when he wants to say something that really matters. So when we heard the opening phrase, "You know...", we knew we were in for something good. 

"You know, you get to a certain age and you just don't care what people think anymore." 

And while this is a phrase that many people are aware of and live by, when he said it, there was a bit of a different connotation. 

What he really meant was that he was there, celebrating his life, with his family and enjoying himself and the rest of the world just didn't matter in the moment. If he had it his way, I would bet that he would never have climbed aboard that saddle, but we were at his firstborn grandson's place of work with a gleam of excitement crossing Dillon's face and Dad made the decision that what everyone else around thought just was not important.

My dad decided he was going to live his best life in that moment and that was all that mattered. 

As someone who embarrasses easily as well, what I'm sure is a genetic trait I've inherited from him, I appreciated what he was saying and quickly understood how right he was.

I've been thinking a lot about what it looks like to live your best life here lately. It is actually part of why we even decided to start this adventure journey and blog. Coming to the conclusion that we are given this gift of this one life and doing the best we can with it, enjoying it the most we can and living it out to the fullest has moved to the forefront of our thoughts. 

In our short fortyish years on this earth, we have seen and felt enough heartbreak to destroy us several times over and we have decided that we want to live the lives that Jesus promised. We want to live lives that experience exceedingly abundantly more than all we could have ever asked for or imagined. 

And the conclusion that J and I have come to is that living our best lives, giving and experiencing love and sharing the hope we have been given with every single person we come across is exactly what we want to do. We want to do this through our words, the experiences we share, and the way we interact with everyone we meet. 

Our ultimate prayer is that when you see or hear us, that you are drawn to the Jesus in us. 

Reflecting on the life of Reverend Billy Graham today only solidified this idea. This one life, completely dedicated to pointing people to Jesus and the hope He gives was a life well lived. A man dedicated to sharing the hope, freedom, and love experienced through a life in Christ, single-handedly, but guided by the Holy Spirit, had an immeasurable impact on this world. 

And when I think about why Jason and I do what we do, it's only because we have just come to that point where we are no longer caring what people think about us anymore. What is more important to us overall, is that we share this hope, freedom, and love we have been given through our lives in Christ. 

More than anything, we want people to feel what we felt when hopelessness left our lives for good. More than anything, we want people to feel what we felt when we finally understood what real freedom is. More than anything, we want people to experience this life full of laughter, joy, and peace that surpasses all understanding no matter how tough it gets at times. 

You see, our lives have been forever changed because someone, somewhere once heard the story of Christ and understood that Jesus gave his life so that we could truly live and so that one day we could be forever united with Him and cared enough to share it with us.

It is this ripple effect that goes on forever as long as we keep sharing the good news of Jesus through our words, actions, experiences and the way we love others. 

This love, this fire in our bones to share the goodness of who He is to us is just more than we can contain and one day, when we close our eyes only to open them inside the gates of heaven, we can only pray we lived our lives well and we hear the words that greeted Dr. Graham today, "Well done thy good and faithful servant."

"But when I tell myself, I'll never mention Your name or speak for You again, it's no use.

The word of God burns in my heart; it is like fire in my bones.

I try to hold it all in, but I cannot."

Jeremiah 20:9, The Voice

***Kathy Lee Gifford explained the impact of Dr. Graham and the reason we celebrate his life today. THIS is the reason we have hope in Jesus and can celebrate in times of loss. Click the link to watch.***