My Never-ending Story
When I was a kid, life felt like the first pages of a new book—all wonder and magic, sprinkled with glitter. There was so much to look forward to, and the end of the story was many, many chapters away. Now as I near sixty and have turned so many pages and closed so many chapters—the death of two marriages, my parents, several friendships, the Town of Paradise, and even more recently, two dear friends and three family members (not to mention the loss of dozens of people who have moved away whom I will likely never see again in this life)—the pace has picked up and every turn of the page speeds me even closer to the end. Now, instead of excitement, I feel sadness. The story is nearly over. It’s not the story I was hoping it would be, but it’s mine. It’s the only story I’ve got.
The suddenness and totality of the destruction of the Camp Fire (reiterated by a much smaller fire on our own property six months later) showed me just how quickly everything I care about can be destroyed. Ever since, I can’t get excited about things like I used to because I know how quickly they can disappear. I’ve always “known” that, at least in theory. But the closest thing to it I’d ever experienced was the morning I woke up to learn that my second husband had run off with another woman. But that was several chapters ago, when I was younger and still envisioned more chapters ahead than I had left behind. These days I know in a way that I didn’t then that this life and its pleasures are temporary. This knowledge has made it harder for me to enjoy them.
What I need now more than ever is assurance that this life is not all there is, something to cling to that can never be snatched away. And I won’t settle for “theory.” My hope needs to be planted in something better and more real than anything this life has to offer, because only when I am fully convinced that this life is not all there is—only when I know for certain that I am, in fact, not nearing the last chapter—can I begin to find joy in the chapter I’m living right now.
That, my friends, is the struggle of faith. It’s clinging to the gospel. It’s remembering that I have indeed been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pt. 1:3), and that this life is only the prologue of a story without end. It’s the fight to keep my focus on God’s eternal kingdom, to maintain the faith that comes from hearing the word (Ro. 10:17), to set my “hope fully on the grace that will be brought . . . at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pt. 1:13), and to let the promise of that glorious future bring me comfort, rest, and yes, even joy in the midst of the trials of this chapter of my life, my life in Christ that will have no end.
