Chapters and Stories

I love to read. I love to read all sorts of things, but my very favorites are stories that grip me, that I cannot put down. Books with characters that I become attached to, who are living stories that I can get caught up in. Maybe someday I will write a post about the many benefits of reading fiction. But for now, we will leave it at this: I love a good story.

I often find myself caught in the Just One More Chapter trap. I tell myself that I am going to read just one more chapter and then I will turn out my light and go to sleep. But there is no resolution at the end of the chapter, so I decide to read just a few more pages. Which of course turns into one more chapter, which turns into a much later bedtime than anticipated.

Sometimes I wish I could fly through the hard chapters in life as quickly as I can fly through the tense chapters in books.

Because those hard chapters and seasons, when we are living them, can be so incredibly painful. And so excruciatingly long.

Not too long ago I was sitting with a beautiful, gifted, compassionate, young woman. Her heart had been broken by someone who had promised never to break her heart. And she cried and told me that it was over for her. She wouldn’t find love again, and she was pretty sure she would never be happy again either. She was certain that this chapter had been her whole story and this chapter had ended, and ended in a painful and ugly way.

Oh, how I resonate with that feeling. I think most of us can. Not so much the heartbroken, never-find-love-again piece of her story, but the part of her that felt it was all over. The part that was ready to give up hope. It's the part of us that believes this is the end, or at least believes that this is the way it’s always going to be. That there are some heartbreaks that won’t heal. There are hard places that will never be easier.

I think this is one of the dangers of hard times. We feel tempted to decide that the end of the chapter is the end of the story. Tempted to declare that we will be forever stuck in the tense, painful middle, and that resolution will elude us.

I was recently reading a book that had just reached a major turning point. Things were at their peak of chaos and turmoil for the characters. And I so badly wanted to know what would happen that I was flying through the pages. All of the sudden, I hit something that didn’t seem to fit or make sense. I flipped back a few pages and saw that in my haste, I had missed some key information.

Another danger we face in hard times is trying to rush the story so that we don't have to sit in the pain any longer.

My job gives me the unique opportunity to sit with people and listen to their stories. And the more years that I have this privilege, and the more stories that I hear, the more I know that hope exists.

The more that I see that hearts do heal. That relationships can be redeemed. That painful chapters do not last forever.

I see it all the time, but sometimes I forget it for my own heart.

So my encouragement for today is to remember that the story isn't over, the verdict isn’t in. Your story is still unfolding. It may be the end of the chapter, but it is not the end of the book. Some chapters are long and hard and painful. And there is still every reason to cling to hope. Hope for healing, hope for redemption, hope for beauty and grace to unfold. Hope.

The second encouragement is harder to hold. You can’t rush the hard chapters. Even in those chapters, embedded in the pain, hope and joy and beauty can be found. And you need to find them to keep going. Sometimes you have to sit in the pain and grief and waiting and uncertainty. It isn’t easy, but it is important.

But know that it’s not the end. This is a chapter. It is not your whole story. There is hope and there is beauty and there is goodness.

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