Happy Friday. Yes, Friday, and here I am posting my contribution to Five Minute Friday! Miracles do happen!

You know the drill. We receive a prompt, ponder it and let our fingers translate the words in our minds and hearts. Then we meet at Kate’s place (http://katemotaung.com/2017/03/16/five-minute-friday-friend/) to link up and share our work with others in the group. There are few “rules” but the most important rule is you visit the blog of the person who linked up before you and leave some encouragement.  That’s the most fun of all, and the heart of this community.

Here’s another take from Five Minute Friday: A Collection of Stories Written in Five Minutes Flat. “Community has been a breath of fresh air in busy weeks.”

This week’s prompt is EMBRACE. The timer is set, so let’s GO …

My dying aunt told her children (my cousins) she had enough and just wanted to dance with her husband again. That’s heartbreaking news for a child … but I know exactly where she is coming from.

We had a similar conversation a few years ago when I visited her. She told me the same thing and I told her I would settle for one more hug, one more embrace. We were speaking not on an aunt-nephew level. We were talking on a widow-widower level. We understood the loneliness, the separation.

Those same conversations always came up with Sonni. We often talked about the “good times” we had with our respective spouses and how much we looked forward to reliving them. Those conversations, sometimes with misty eyes, always ended with an embrace and extended hug.

I truly do miss the embraces, the intimacy, the friendship and the love I had with my wife Karen. It tears at my heart every day, even after eight and a half years.

And some day, I will tell my children I’ve had enough and just want that embrace from my wife again. It’s not fatalism. On the contrary, it is hope. It’s not abandonment. It’s rejoining a new community with the love of your … STOP

… life. I can only hope they will understand.

How I’ve gone through my widower journey — as have all those other widows and widowers I have come to know — is by clinging to the hope in that embrace. And it’s Jesus’ embrace of us that gives us that hope. He may not physically be here, but His arms are wide open, waiting for me to come in and be enveloped in His strong arms. I feel them often.

I know my wife will be waiting for me with a big embrace, followed by hundreds others from family members and friends. And then the dancing will begin.

THOUGHT TO REMEMBER: God’s plans for your life far exceed the circumstances of your day