Some of you spend the rest of your life this way.

—dreaming about hugging your person.

. . . 

The last time I hugged Mom was a silly Wednesday seven weeks ago. 

The kids were losing their minds, and I was frantically shooing them out the door as I gathered my belongings.

Mom’s fighting a debilitating disease, so the coronavirus has compounded the sting of passing time without physical fellowship. 

I still get to talk to her daily, and I get to hear her talk back. Thank God for technology. 

But there’s no substitute for Mom’s arms around me.

. . . 

You must feel this too as you endure lengthy separation from your people amid quarantine. 

We collectively ache for the presence of our dear ones.

But it won’t always look like this. For most of us, we’ll eventually reenter the life that awaits us. 

Some of you are already picking up your pieces. 

Mom is still here, and I plan to hug her close. 

But some of you can’t say that. 

Some of you felt the separation long before quarantine. 

Some of you have been separated by this side of heaven.

. . . 

Many of us will emerge from coronavirus dinged up but largely unscathed. 

But that doesn’t mean we have to emerge unchanged.

We’ll need to keep these complicated feelings always before us. If not for us—for our neighbors, for our transformation in Christ. 

I’ve been missing Mom’s hugs for months.

—but some of you have been missing your person’s hugs for a lifetime. 

And we didn’t know. 

But now we do. 

. . . 

Lord, the carnage of this pandemic is unthinkable, but we know You won’t waste it. Make out of us the most compassionate people. 

“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” (Romans 12:15 NIV.)