TEN IN FIVE
Here’s the sentence in the book I am wrestling with—When we tell our troubles it is always to gain sympathy.
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There’s a line in a favorite movie. Maybe my most beloved line of all time—
One character, with exacting clarity responds, “I will tell you how he lived,”
to the other’s request,“Tell me how he died.”
Psalm 23. In the moment just before I allow my entire body to be pushed through a tube, I realize that after all these years I have habitually omitted something: My cup runneth over.
Why is it I always seem to forget this most beautiful of beautiful lines?
There is an assumption in these four overlooked words—
that life can be lived with a fullness that surpasses the minutes of our days.
Now, let me clarify what the italicized sentence at the beginning gets wrong.
Sympathy has never entered my mind.
We do not tell our troubles to harvest pity.
We speak them to reveal a shared humanity—
To initiate a conversation that is real as real is.
To give hope to the hurting (which is all of us, eventually).
To proclaim that this is not a season of running out but running over with blessing.
To bear witness to a Creator that heals.
That my latest scan was not what we had hoped for bears mentioning. But it is not this story’s intention. This is about expanding something seemingly limited [years].
Not cramming, not hustling—but multiplying.
The arithmetic of grace.
None of us control the length, but we can choose the fullness.
And fullness has never been framed within how much but what is chosen.
My minutes are not simply counted — they are cultivated.
This has become my newest mantra, my deliberation, my way through.
When I began to believe that five years could carry the weight and beauty of ten, the mind sought proof of this. The evidence surfaced in small, shimmering ways:
Conversations began deepening more quickly and effortlessly.
Wisdom offered itself before its season.
Most remarkably, Heaven itself seems to honor the choice of tending to what is holy rather than trivial, the letting go of what confuses and paralyzes, the loosening of fear.
Anguish always shouts its position, stealing not only the moment but the momentum necessary to build meaningful things.
But there is a softer word that wields power in its whisper: Agreement.
Agreement not with dis-ease but with the healing already set in motion inside of us—
the way cells clear what does not belong,
the way the body claims inflammation,
the way injury repairs while we sleep.
Anguish replaced by agreement.
Not denial. Not pretending.
An aligning.
The mission becomes joining the healing already under way in me.
I refuse to make not dying my call.
My call is to live a life worth saving.
I will not give these five years to fear.
I will not trade them for pettiness or regret.
I will not let anger script the calendar of my days.
These years will not be wasted on the unremarkable,
but filled with the radiant.
When I refuse the distractions that steal time [the petty, the unremarkable, the ungodly]
the mind itself renews.
Thought clears. Courage steadies, Vision sharpens.
The Spirit, once the noise is hushed, speaks directly to the core.
The body, too, testifies: thirty trillion cells, and every day hundreds of billions fall away so that others may be born. Skin remade in weeks. Blood in months. The gut lining in days.
Renewal is not rare; it is the body’s ordinary miracle.
Why then should there not be a constant renewing of my years?
This is not the popular discourse that tells us to be “intentional” or “present,” words worn smooth by overuse until they have very little grip.
This is a testament to a life that refuses to be stalled by fear—
A life that will not let grievance curate the day.
A life that will not hand its calendar to dread.
Ten in five looks like this:
A conversation that goes one layer deeper than planned.
A forgiveness offered before the apology arrives.
A table set on an ordinary Tuesday because breath is reason for a feast.
A prayer that doesn’t beg God to come, but notices He is already here.
This is what happens when we decide to meet time differently—when we dare to believe that years can be multiplied. Not by doing more. But by seeing more. Receiving more.
Giving more away.
We tell our hard stories because truth expands time and thins the veil.
And when truth is spoken, hope borrows a chair and lingers there.
If someday you ask how I died, I hope the answer tells of how I lived instead:
By refusing the theft of anguish.
By agreeing with the healing already begun.
By offering my cup to be filled until it runs over the edge.
By trusting the One who inhabits the wounded temple,
who multiplies loaves and years and moments,
who can make ten out of five.
Not faster. But fuller.
Not hurried. But holy.
My cup runneth over.
Not because the clock is kind,
but because Presence has been faithful.
And if I have any testimony at all, it is this:
I wanted to live, and I did—
not by clinging to breath as an argument against death,
but by making of these breaths a life worth saving.
NOTES
Ten in Five defined: To live as though each year can double in beauty and depth — not by doing more, but by giving more. To align body, mind, and spirit in renewal, so that five years unfold with the fruitfulness of ten.
Spiritual harmony: God honors openness, courage, and surrender. As the body renews itself, so the spirit and mind are invited to do the same. Refusing what is petty protects the richness of time.
Quickening effect: When petty distractions and ungodly noise are refused, the mind clears. Thought sharpens, courage steadies, vision strengthens.
Renewing of the body:
The human body contains ~30 trillion cells.
~330 billion are replaced daily.
Skin renews in ~1 month, red blood cells in ~4 months, gut lining in days.
Some cells last a lifetime (neurons, many heart cells), carrying memory and identity.
Renewal is not exception but design — the body’s ordinary miracle.
Renewing of the mind: Romans 12:2 — “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Neuroscience confirms the brain continually seeks evidence of what it believes. A choice to believe in doubled richness primes perception to discover it.
Shifting focus — deliberately noticing beauty, wonder, Presence, instead of rehearsing fear.
Cutting off petty fuel — not feeding grievance, comparison, or outrage, so they wither.
Training thought — meditating on abundance (“my cup runneth over”), on what is holy, on what is eternal.
Reframing loss as gift — not denying pain but holding it as the ground where fruit grows quicker and sweeter.
The body renews by letting go of the old so the new can live. My mind can do the same. My spirit can do the same. I can choose what I feed. I can choose what I starve. And in that choice, five years can become ten
Image: Inside the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, Marseille —I captured this image during my France sojourn, my journey through the land of my ancestors…to discover [or uncover] important parts of who I am. I was drawn to this corner of the cathedral…this chamber of burning witness. A glowing celebration/a marking of life and the eternal. A single flame, a multitude of flames. Fragile yet faithful. Ordinary yet sacred. Time itself, pressed and multiplied, until it glows. It felt like the perfect image to live amongst these words.