Our living is made up of ordinary days; tornado-less, going-to-work, feed-the-cat, Ides-of-March days.
We live in get up-stretch-scratch-shuffle-off-to-launch-the-coffee and amble-towards-the-loo sort of days. Let's face it; life is not like Disneyland.
Not every moment is high resolution picture-perfect.
Many moments are not even picture-worthy – though no one has told this to the squatters on social media.
But we are told that life must glitter and shine and be without error to really matter. That mountaintop faith, rarified air, and a thick wallet and/or passport is what qualifies a worthy life. Success. Noteworthiness. Paparazzi.
Balderdash. What if the wealth of merry memories happen in the unpretentious ordinary – not in line for a U2 concert, pirate party, Fake Patty's Day, or bungi jumping over the Zambezi (though I'm willing to take my chances to test the theory)? What if the everyday unphotoshopped opportunities of being above ground are what living is all about?
Pictures that prove I happened: Leaping hay bales with the kids at their grandparent's farm in Coldwater, curled up between my favorite people with coffee threatening to spill as we fight for the newspaper funnies, finding a squad of grass-stained boys quietly working over Lego masterpieces, or Madi's homemade bagels boiling and 
baking…this is the stuff of life and among my favorite memories. They prove I've lived.
Or the photo of our best Thanksgiving in a tiny cabin beside a Kansas pond and of cooking bacon on sticks over a fire and under an Abraham-count-the-stars sky. We laughed and cooked the turkey in a borrowed roaster wedged in a room of the cabin because the stove was too small. And though we were missing part of our merry band, they were where they needed to be.
We were ridiculously happy.
Yet, I still wrestle with whether my life matters.
Do I have photographs – current ones – that prove my life has meaning?
I wrestle with wondering if I'm nearing my "fresh until" date.
Are my contributions noteworthy?
Are my days noteworthy?
Am I worthy of note?
I'm not alone. I want to blaze a trail out of that messy thorny thicket – hack the choking climbing vines, stumble and get up; slay the serpent that whispers the lie that I – you – don't matter.
I'm going to begin to whack away at that lie with a letter written to a bunch of ragamuffin Romans, by a guy named Paul.
Romans 12:1 "So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him."
I have no idea where this escape route will lead, but I'll keep taking snapshots along the way, to prove that this new life is happening.
