today. and might i add, wow.

“Life is a collection of a million, billion 

moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of 

luminous, glowing pearls. And strung together, built upon 

one another, lined up through the days and the years, they 

make a life, a person. It takes so much time, and so much 

work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so 

much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies. 

But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: 

this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing 

I’m waiting for, that adventure, that movie-score-worthy 

experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life 

ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and 

apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our 

dreams and prayers and fights and secrets. This pedestrian 

life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience. 

I believe that this way of living, this focus on the 

present, the daily, the tangible, this intense concentration 

not on the news headlines but on the flowers growing in your 

own garden, the children growing in your own home, this way 

of living has the potential to open up the heavens, to yield a 

glittering handful of diamonds where a second ago there was 

coal. This way of living and noticing and building and crafting 

can crack through the movie sets and soundtracks that keep 

us waiting for our own life stories to begin, and set us free 

to observe the lives we have been creating all along without 

even realizing it. 

I don’t want to wait anymore. I choose to believe 

that there is nothing more sacred or profound than this 

day. I choose to believe that there may be a thousand big 

moments embedded in this day, waiting to be discovered 

like tiny shards of gold. The big moments are the daily, tiny 

moments of courage and forgiveness and hope that we 

grab on to and extend to one another. That’s the drama of 

life, swirling all around us, and generally I don’t even see it, 

because I’m too busy waiting to become whatever it is I think 

I am about to become. The big moments are in every hour, 

every conversation, every meal, every meeting. 

The Heisman Trophy winner knows this. He knows that 

his big moment was not when they gave him the trophy. It 

was the thousand times he went to practice instead of going 

back to bed. It was the miles run on rainy days, the healthy 

meals when a burger sounded like heaven. That big moment 

represented and rested on a foundation of moments that 

had come before it. 

I believe that if we cultivate a true attention, a deep 

ability to see what has been there all along, we will find 

worlds within us and between us, dreams and stories and 

memories spilling over. The nuances and shades and secrets

and intimations of love and friendship and marriage and 

parenting are action-packed and multicolored, if you know 

where to look.

Today is your big moment. Moments, really. The life 

you’ve been waiting for is happening all around you. The 

scene unfolding right outside your window is worth more 

than the most beautiful painting, and the crackers and 

peanut butter that you’re having for lunch on the coffee table 

are as profound, in their own way, as the Last Supper. This 

is it. This is life in all its glory, swirling and unfolding around 

us, disguised as pedantic, pedestrian non-events. But pull 

off the mask and you will find your life, waiting to be made, 

chosen, woven, crafted. 

Your life, right now, today, is exploding with energy 

and power and detail and dimension, better than the best 

movie you have ever seen. You and your family and your 

friends and your house and your dinner table and your 

garage have all the makings of a life of epic proportions, a 

story for the ages. Because they all are. Every life is. 

You have stories worth telling, memories worth 

remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth 

feeding, a soul worth tending, and beyond that, the God of 

the universe dwells within you, the true culmination of super 

and natural. 

You are more than dust and bones. 

You are spirit and power and image of God. 

And you have been given Today. “

-shauna niequist (on waiting)

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