The Last Page

Mama cries on the last page of every book. My kids grew up with that reality. Fortunately, they were kind or respectful enough to keep any eye-rolling to themselves, but it was predictable.

Truth or fiction, biography or novel—the last chapter always brought a crack in my voice and unbeckoned tears. And we read a lot of books out loud.

Of course, I analyzed myself. I wasn’t sad that we were done with yet another book. I knew the hero would die at the end of his life. (Isn’t that where every biography ends?) I wasn’t disappointed with the author’s resolution. To the contrary, even if it wasn’t a favorite book, I was most always pleased with the author’s ability to tie up all the loose ends.

My best guess is that it put me in touch with a universal ache: We all want the story to end well. We want OUR stories to end well. I want things to finally be put right so that we can get on with the happily ever after part. I want to win the conflict that was worth the fight and to experience an ending that is better than where we began. And we ache because we aren’t there yet. We can only hope.

And sometimes in the middle of Life, chapter 435, it’s not looking so good.

Twenty-five years after college, I ventured back to Texas for a reunion with the church college group I loved. It was my first visit in two decades. I think all present would have agreed that life had been harder—but God better—than we imagined as our 19- and 20-year-old selves. We were weathered but still held in the grip of grace.

Such was the case for a friend I’ll call Bart. As a missionary, he had fled with his wife and children from a terror attack, among other traumas that had aged this faithful son.

I had come with fewer traumas of that magnitude. But I carried a great deal of unvoiced disappointment about the adventure I had wanted in life. I knew God hadn’t left me and I hadn’t left Him. But He was silent, and I was frozen in place in a very long winter of the soul.

“Margaret!” Bart exclaimed.

And before I could say, “How are you?” he started pounding the air with his fist.

“Your song.”

I cocked my head quizzically while he was clearly reaching for something deep inside.

His face tensed as he recalled, “I’ve lived through several hells in my life. Afghanistan was one of them. But your song was a lifeline for me in those times.”

He closed his eyes tight, and with a slightly stooped frame and quiet voice began to sing aloud the chorus of a song I had written so long ago:

You have been my light

I’ve never walked alone.

My pathway, like the light of dawn,

Has daily brighter grown.

You have been my light,

A constant, faithful source,

Enabling me to find Your will,

To run the ancient course.

You have been my light.

He didn’t even open his eyes till he finished. I was sobbing almost uncontrollably.

Another friend standing with us probed cautiously, “Margaret, why that reaction?”

Might as well be honest. “Because I haven’t written much since. And I wonder if God will ever use me again.”

At which point it was Bart’s turn to give me the lifeline. “But, Margaret,” he said incredulously, “your story isn’t over yet.”

I will remember those words for as long as I live.

I could hear an irreversible crack fracturing the ice of my silent winter, and I dared to hope that spring would come. That my story would end better than what it looked like now.

Many of us have been praying and watching and wondering what the plot line holds for America’s future. Many of us wonder the same for our own individual lives and those we love.

I experienced an interesting shift of perspective a couple days ago while praying for our country. Intercession has been a struggle, honestly. How do you pray when the consequences we are reaping are deserved? When the need is for hearts to turn around—yet that is something God desires but never forces on anyone?

I switched to contemplating the Author’s point of view. He chose to write the story of America in such a way that His glory would be on display. Here is what a nation could be if it implemented His wise and unbreakable principles. And make no mistake, He will be proved glorious by America’s cooperation with Him, or He will be proved right by America’s breaking itself on the truths it rejected.

Either way He is just. Either way, “they will know that I am the LORD” (Ezekiel 33:29).

But America’s destruction is not the way He wants the story to end. “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live…” (Ezekiel 33:11).

I dared to ask that for the sake of His name, for the expansion of His honor in the earth, would He mercifully cause America’s story not to end as a sad tale and byword of what it looks like for a people to reject God? May His reputation not be mocked because of our failure. Rather may His immensity be on display to the praise of His glorious grace.

I don’t know how America’s story will resolve. He will receive glory either way.

But I do know that the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2) gets the first and last word of the meta-story of the universe and all our individual ones as well. And to Him belong the plot lines and resolutions.

For those like me, He kindly left us with a “last page of the book” that is worth all the drama and conflict of the thousands of chapters of life before it.

Revelation 22:3-6 from The Passion Translation, “And every curse will be broken and no longer exist, for the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there in the city. His loving servants will serve him; they will constantly see his face [[Can you imagine?!]] …Night will be no more … the Lord God will shine on them. And they will reign as kings forever and ever! Then the angel said to me, ‘These words are entirely trustworthy and true …’” 

Our story isn’t over yet. And even I won’t cry at the end of this one.

I dare you to live for the last page.