Upendo Ministries

I don’t want to just drift through life.

I don’t want to spend my years reaching for things that shine for a moment but slip through my fingers just as quickly. I don’t want to look back one day and realize I filled my hands with things that never really held any weight.

I want to live like it matters.

Not just for me. Not just for what people think. But because this life isn’t all there is. There’s more—so much more. And somehow, what I choose now is echoing into forever.

I don’t want my story to be centered around me. I want people to hear my name and think of the One who never left me. I want the story of my life to be stained with His fingerprints—to leave behind a trail that points so clearly to Jesus that no one could miss it.

I want to love people in a way that actually costs me something. I don’t want to love in the shallow places—I want to love in the deep, where it’s messy and hard and where people usually back away. I want to speak life, even when I’m tired. I want to forgive quickly, even when it still hurts. I want to pray the bold prayers, even when nothing has changed yet.

I have been thinking, one day I will stand at the edge of this life and look back. And in that moment, I don’t want to wish I had one more chance. One more sunrise. One more conversation. One more step of obedience. I don’t want to look back at a trail of faint footsteps, wishing I had walked bolder, loved deeper, trusted farther.

I want to live in a way that my future self, standing on the edge of eternity, would look back and say, “Yes. It mattered. It was worth it. It was fully spent on the right things.”

I want to live now like I believe Jesus is worthy of everything. Not just my Sundays. Not just the parts of my life I’m comfortable surrendering. I want to live like He’s worthy of my time, my attention, my dreams, my story, my disappointments—everything.

It’s sobering to realize that the days I’m living right now are becoming my legacy. There’s no pause button. There’s no rewind. I get this one life, and I don’t want to spend it half-asleep, chasing comfort, scrolling past the very moments God is asking me to step into.

I want to live awake. I want to live present. I want to live surrendered.

Because this life isn’t forever. But what we do with it echoes beyond the years we can count.

So I want to live like it matters.
I want to live like Jesus is worth it.
Because He is.

-Vanessa