As I approached this week’s installment of Five Minute Friday, I immediately thought of a previous FMF assignment. This week’s word is EXHALE. The word for April 5, 2013 was AFTER.

The two prompts somehow connected for me. Exhaling is the release after the excitement of the moment. It’s a cleansing breath.

With this being a holiday and time with out-of- and in-town family time at a premium, I’m going to cheat a little and liberally use the previous post as a template.

So, here goes my Five Minute friends. Unlike regular weeks, I’m not setting the timer … just sharing.

My first thought or image was of Spencer Tracy sitting in his arm chair exhaling a deep sigh after marrying off his daughter in Father of the Bride. His tuxedo tie is loosen and the living room is in shambles. He looks at Joan Bennett and says something like, “Well, Kitten, we did it.”

It started me thinking about after any event, knowing the pressure was off … exhaling with a sigh of satisfaction and relief.

Our wedding was the same. I can’t tell you much about the preparations — mainly because I was a passive participant — but I can remember minute details about the wedding itself and especially afterwards when we jointly exhaled in anticipation of the journey before us.

I can see my wife smiling as she held each of our newborns, exhaling in joy after giving birth, completely oblivious to the uncomfortable pregnancies and the pain and tumult of birth.

I can remember the birthday parties and weddings and sitting back, like old Spencer Tracy, exhaling after the event knowing it  either all came together or we got through it.

And without being maudlin, I can imagine the moment after life’s struggles and trials are over, when I take our final exhaling breath and stand before my Lord in the presence of family and friends who have gone before me and hear Him say, Well done, good and faithful servant.

Well, that’s it for this week. The initiative was started by Lisa-Jo Baker (http://lisajobaker.com/2014/07/five-minute-friday-exhale/) who thought about writing and how often our perfectionism gets in the way of our words. And she figured, why not take five minutes and see what comes out: not a perfect post, not a profound post, just five minutes of focused writing.

There are a couple hundred bloggers who pause to post on the prompt word of the week. It’s fun getting the prompt, thinking about it for a couple of minutes and getting to work producing something readable (you hope) in just five minutes. You should link over and read some of the posts. They don’t disappoint.

THOUGHT TO REMEMBER: When you have positive thoughts, the good things in life are revealed.