It’s writing time! Join us for this week’s Five Minute Friday link-up.

If you’re new to the Five Minute Friday community, a special welcome to you! Make sure you join the FMF email list to receive weekly writing prompts in your inbox.

You can also click here to learn more about the link-up and how it works.

This week’s FMF writing prompt is: SHORT

Setting my timer for five minutes, and . . . GO. 

This week, for various reasons, I’m reflecting on just how short this life is.

In less than a month I’ll be forty-five. The other night as I was washing dishes, it occurred to me that it’s very likely that more than half my life has already passed. Perhaps three-quarters or more, depending on how many days the Lord has allotted to me.

And that’s just it. We have no idea.

Some get many, some get a few. There’s no way to explain it, often no warning. It just is.

The song “My Shot” from Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda comes to mind:

I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory
When’s it gonna get me?
In my sleep? Seven feet ahead of me?
If I see it comin’, do I run or do I let it be?
Is it like a beat without a melody?
See, I never thought I’d live past twenty
Where I come from some get half as many

This weekend some dear friends of ours will honor the life of their young adult son. A life cut far too short. Unexpected.

With so many hardships and trials and bad news these days, it’s easy to dwell on or even in the darkness. But as I sit here typing outside sitting by a friend’s pool listening to the birds chirp and insects make whatever noises they make, the sheer volume of the cacophony reminds me that there is still life to be lived until the Lord calls us home.

STOP.

+++

Join the link-up with your own five-minute freewrite below, then visit your link-up neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment: