Holy vs. Earthly endings

This post was written for Five Minute Friday, a group of encouraging writers, with this week’s word: CONCLUDE. Written in five minutes, with no real editing or proofing. If you’d like to read other writers’ posts on the same word, click HERE.

I remember in elementary and middle school, the “cool” way to end a story was for the main character to wake up, with the whole story having been a dream. Even today, thirty years later, coming up with a solid ending that ties everything up into a neat bow is probably the hardest part of writing. Perhaps because, in real life, conclusions aren’t always neat. They almost always are unexpected. They’re messy and sad or shocking, abrupt. Cliff hanger endings in tv shows are somewhat expected, especially when it’s the season finale, but only if there will be a new episode to pick up where you left off in a few short months. When reading books that end without resolution, I get angry. As if the whole book was a waste of time and energy reading. But, real life is exactly like that. Sometimes we will don’t get the chance to say goodbye, I’m sorry, or I love you. Sometimes the bad guy goes free, the disease isn’t cured, the dirt ball gets away with the scam. Thank God for hope. That in heaven, all pain is released. All tears are wiped away. All questions are answered, and maybe vengeance just doesn’t matter anymore to our once outstretched puny fists, in light of the holiness and glory of God.

8 Comments on “Holy vs. Earthly endings

  1. I agree, we have a longing for certainty and for all the loose ends to be tied up neatly, but we don’t always get that in this life. It is so encouraging to think of the hope we have in God, that in the end everything will be resolved and there will be no more pain or suffering. Visiting from FMF #15.

    Like

  2. I’d like a happy ending,
    silhouette by setting sun,
    but it’s no use pretending
    that such is gonna come,
    not with all the blood and mire,
    cancer’s ‘benediction’,
    and I really don’t inquire
    as to doc’s prediction.
    But I am still believing
    that past this place of wrath and tears
    I’ll be in joy receiving
    the recompense for anguished years,
    and that, once dead, but now alive
    God will slap my palm, “High five!”

    Liked by 1 person

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