Where do i go from here?

​I turn 60 today. I find myself asking, where do I go from here?

I ask that not because I'm turning 60. I ask it because I ask that of most days now, and indeed, of many situations in general.

I ran my first marathon several years ago. I think that was the start of that question: where do I go from here? At the finish line of that race I determined I hadn't finished something, but rather, I was at the starting line of my next challenge.

So, at the start of each new day now, I challenge myself, where do I go from here?

Or, sometimes, caught up in my emotions, whether I'm happy or sad, if I'm glad or angry or lonely, or if I'm feeling particularly victorious or defeated, I try to ask myself, where do I go from here?

If I feel any distance growing in my relationship with my boys, I ask, where do I go from here?

If I am feeling the momentum from a particular article I've written or talk I've given, I find myself asking, where do I go from here?

Where do I go from here?

It's a powerful question.

It acknowledges no matter how high or how low a moment or a circumstance or a period of time gets, it's only a starting place, never the end.

It acknowledges I do have some say-so in where I go from here if I'll simply stop and acknowledge my say-so.

That question is a reminder that life is never something we settle into, but rather an ongoing invitation to us each and every day to embrace her with new love and life and determination.

I turn 60 today and I find myself asking, where do I go from here?

That's nothing short of a miraculous shift in my life given that I crawled into my 50s far more prone to ask, where will you be taking me from here, life?

The song, Say I Won't, by MercyMe, became a theme song of the latter years of my 50s. There are lyrics in the song that proclaim:

I'm gonna run
No, I'm gonna fly
I'm gonna know what it means to live
And not just be alive
The world's gonna hear
'Cause I'm gonna shout
And I will be dancing when circumstances drown the music out
Say I won't

It's poetic, really, that I took up running in my 50s. It would be easy for me to think, I really want to keep running into my 60s. But the reality is, no, I don't wanna run.

I'm gonna fly.

I have discovered what it means to live and that's exactly what I intend to keep doing.

So I'm gonna fly.

Because that's exactly what you can do once you start asking, where do I go from here? You ask it and realize the answer to that question is far more in your control than you used to realize.

So, I encourage you, no matter how old you turn today, or no matter how up or down you might feel today, stop and ask yourself, where do I go from here?

Ask it and be grateful in knowing that if you have the freedom to ask that question, you have some say-so in the answer. And life is inviting you into that answer.

Where do I go from here?

Don't ever stop asking.