My mother turned ninety last weekend. She spent part of the evening dancing. Forty years ago she told me she didn't expect to see fifty. She had the medical history to back it up.

There was a season when she could have recited Footprints in the Sand the way you'd repeat one side of an argument. At ninety, that's a memory. She doesn't wonder anymore whose footprints those are.

Isaiah wrote to people convinced God had moved on — people hauling around gods they had to carry themselves. He drew the contrast plain. You carry yours. Mine has carried you since before you were born.

She isn't thankful for ninety years. She's thankful for Who was in every one of them.

This week's devotional is about what makes a life full — and why none of us need ninety years to learn it.