15,242,400 minutes

I never imagined that in the early morning hours of my 29th birthday I would be sitting on the couch eating ice cream with my 8yr old at 3:45 in the morning.

 Or that before that we would spend 15 min sitting in the bathroom breathing in steam from the shower while searching pinterest for fun Christmas crafts.

Or that I would spend the rest of the night sleeping on the living room floor next to the couch because she wanted me to be near her in case she had another coughing fit.

But I did.

While we were eating our chocolate chip ice cream.  Kaitlyn asked,

"Mom I don't know how you don't take a nap everyday"

"What do you mean?"

"It seems like every night you are up with someone."

That was true just the night before I had slept in bed with Samantha because she was having coughing fits.  And all the other nights before that? Well lets just say in the past year it has been rare for Samantha to sleep through the night.

"Well that's just what moms do.  Plus that's what coffee is for."

I knew that her late night coughing and and fever spike meant I was going to have to cancel my birthday plans for the next day.  No family trip to the symphony and we weren't going to drive around and look at Christmas lights.  But I was ok with that.

I felt happy.

I sat next to Kaitlyn with a smile on my face.  You see I'd given up counting how many of hours of sleep I was missing each night years ago when she was a baby.

I'd sit in the rocking chair with her and calculate just how much sleep I was going to get that night.  I'd add up how many hours I was behind that week and try to figure out how much sleep I'd missed since she had been born.

Mostly it was just an exercise to keep me awake during all those midnight feedings.  But in the end I realized I was missing incredible moments because I spent it counting minutes.

29 years, 15,242,400 minutes

So many memories in those minutes.  So many experiences. So many moments of delight. So many moments of regrets.

I don't know how many many minutes I have left on this earth.  But I know this:

I don't want to count them.

I want to spend them.

I want to relish every minute no matter what I am doing.  Whether eating ice cream at 3 in the morning, or going to the movies.  Whether I'm bleaching the bathroom so no one else gets sick, or eating dinner at a fancy restaurant.  Whether I'm cooking dinner (again), or lounging on the beach.  I want those minutes to count.  

I want my life to be about much more than 29, 39, 59, or 89 years of me.

I want every single minute of those years to be about loving my God.  Serving my God.  Honoring my God.

 At 29 years I'm not in the record books.  I haven't made my first million.  I' m not a CEO of a major corporation.  Heck I haven't even graduated college.

At 29 years of age I've realized that soon the world will forget me and how I spent my minutes.

But God will not forget me.  

He will remember those minutes.

My great great great grandchildren may not know my name.  But I hope that how I choose to spend my minutes today will impact how they choose to spend theirs.

 Whether you have 1 more minute on this earth or 50,000,000 more.  Make it count.  Make it worth it.  

Bless someone today with your presence.  That's the best present I could ever receive!

 Then come back here and tell me Happy Birthday in the comments below!