I have hungered for the rejuvenating depths of this blessed 2:30 AM hour. Of course, I don't regret sleeping in for those 41 days—my body demanded that. But, I did have to relinquish something dear to me!

This is more than a quiet space to lift iron or pump the heart—those are good, don't get me wrong. But there is something profoundly life-infusing in this place to meditate on truth and its context in my life and beyond.

As I hear the rain splash on the concrete outside, I think it's no different than those things people flag as ❗️IMPORTANT. It's all just a cascade of noise that will soon be forgotten. What are today's top national headlines on news media? The kind of stuff that the whole nation must be told—do they really matter? Will it shape this month for you?

I consider how our lives are mortared up with inconsequential bits that keep us walled up from the things that do matter.

Have you ever walked through a solemn and desolate graveyard to consider—really consider—the lives before you? Oft, we just look at the year on a headstone and exclaim to seemingly no one, "Golly, that was a while ago." It is as though we're just mindlessly stumbling around an antique mall for what we might unearth. We forget that they are people whom...

...yearned hopelessly and loved from afar in unmet passion; ...celebrated success with a contagious smile and a wink;
...stammered out expletives toward the ones they love the most;
...wavered before the unknown future as their parents lay dead before them;
...jumped at the sight of a spider.

What mattered the most in their lives? (Hint: It wasn't national policy.)

Will you become just a year bygone?