Sammy...

"So much of me is made from what I've learned from you. You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart." -Wicked

"So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you." -John 16:22

I love the book Atonement. All the 26-year-old grandma jokes aside, I had to read it my freshman year at Furman and was instantly drawn in. I couldn't put it down. I wanted to know what was going to happen to Cee and Robbie and Briony and I wanted to know as fast as I could.

But the reason that book was so good to me and not just another book I read through and then discarded was the ending. It made me think and it made me question and it brought all of the rest of the story together in a crazy way that I didn't expect. I think about that because I just finished re-watching the movie version of the book. When it gets to the end and Briony is being interviewed the movie brings me to tears.

Maybe your favorite book isn't Atonement. Maybe you've never seen the movie. But I would bet that you've seen a movie whose ending just seemed perfect. Maybe it's Forrest Gump talking to Jenny's grave after she's died and he's getting ready to put Forrest Jr. on the school bus. Or maybe it's the end of Titanic when Rose lets Jack go (yeah, yeah, we all know he had plenty of space on top of the board.)

There are lots of movies that have great endings, the kinds of endings that you want to re-watch over and over again. But here's the thing about great endings. They only matter if the end of the story follows a great story to get there. The end is only special if the chapters before it have drawn you in on your way to the finale. If you just skip ahead to the ending, it loses that thing that makes it so special.

Today my favorite dog in the whole, wide world turned SEVENTEEN years old! SEVENTEEN! That's like a BILLION years old in doggie years!

Today is also the day that Mom and Dad made the decision that her health and mobility has finally reached the point where she can't enjoy her life anymore. She can't even stand up on her own at this point. So Friday Samantha's going to make her last visit to the vet in her wonderful, puppy dog life. And then she's going to play in that big dog park in the sky.

This sweet dog has been the dog I grew up with. I can't remember very much of my life that Sam wasn't around for. I remember when she came home the first time and we played out in the backyard. I remember her being there when I got home from school after we moved to Tennessee and didn't have many friends. And when I would come home from Furman or Texas, the first family member I wanted to see wasn't Mom or Dad. I wanted a big hug from my puppy!

She chased more invisible squirrels in the backyard than any dog in history, and I'm sure she even caught a couple of them at some point. When she met new people, she'd bark ferociously to scare them off, but if that didn't work, she'd usually pee on the floor in fear (not much of a guard dog in her blood.) Her favorite pastime was ripping the squeaker out of new toys she'd get for Christmas, which was usually accomplished by 11:00 am on December 25th. She lived for treats until her very last days, and I'm convinced that's what kept her alive all these years.

For all those reasons and a thousand more, the news that Sam's whimsical and wonderful life is going to come to a comfortable end on Friday is hard. It's tragic in fact. When I go home in a month for a wedding, Sam won't be there to lick my face or give me a hug.

But like great movies, the ending tells you if it's been a story worth hearing. And Sam's certainly has been that. That I'm overcome with sadness at the end of her life means that it's been a really great one. It's a sign that the memories we've made together are worthwhile, and that her life was one well-lived.

These are the kinds of stories that God is constantly telling in our lives. It's the story of Jesus on Easter. Easter Sunday is a celebration! It's a day to celebrate that death does not have the final word and that in the face of grief and tragedy, the ending of the story hasn't been told until God gets the final word in. Love wins. Shalom wins. The story isn't done until God's made things the way they were intended to be.

That's why Easter has to come after Good Friday, why the resurrection has to come after the crucifixion. Jesus didn't just die. He came back! And the story of resurrection is powerful. But it's only powerful because Jesus' life and death was so incredible. He lived a life of sacrificial love and re-imagining the limits of who is in and who is out. He challenged authority and offered the left behind hope in the face of despair. And in the end he was killed because the Kingdom he proclaimed was too radical, it was too different. The love he imagined was too beautiful for others to comprehend.

Easter Sunday is a celebration of a hope that came in the midst of utter darkness. The disciples had been deserted by their rabbi and must've thought, "What have we wasted our last three years doing? I thought Jesus was supposed to win in the end?" The Kingdom Jesus had proclaimed had lost. But then it didn't. The story wasn't over, there was another chapter. That's why we celebrate all of Holy Week. Easter is the beautiful and miraculous end of a story and life that was well-lived, even in the deep pain that preceded it.

There are chapters in our lives that can be harder than we think we can bear. We are going to face struggles and tragedies and pain that seem like it won't ever go away. We face seasons of darkness that are so overwhelming there seems like there is no end in sight and that hope has completely abandoned us. There are moments when we suffer loss that we think irreplaceable and loneliness that cannot be filled.

The story of Easter is that the darkness doesn't win, the despair doesn't conquer, the grief cannot be the last word. The story of Easter is that the story isn't over, that God is still working and that love and hope and peace will one day have the final say. And that kind of hope can be risky. If the story's not over, it's easy to think that the rest of the chapters will be just like the ones we're facing. The scars and fears and pain of life are real. They are the patchwork of our life that tell our story. But know that the ending of the story is still being written, and that God is writing a beautiful ending, even in the face of insurmountable pain.

Then there are times when the end of things that are special can be incredibly hard. We grieve the finishing of things that were great once, begging for one more day or one more memory. We find ourselves asking, "Why couldn't we get just one more chance to say goodbye?" or "Why didn't we appreciate even more the time we had?" The ending of these stories are only powerful because the preceding chapters were so wonderful.

As Dr. Seuss once wrote, "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." This was the pain the disciples must have felt. The despair they must have felt at the crucifixion of their leader must have left them alone and abandoned. But only because the life they'd followed was one worth following. We only grieve things that were worth grieving. We only feel sad at the end of stories that were worth telling.

As we approach Easter, may you know that your story is not over and that God is still writing a beautiful ending. As we learn to live into God's story, the chapters are not guaranteed to be painless or without suffering, but they are promised to participate in the great finale God is unfolding. If you are drowning in pain, know that the story isn't finished and there is hope at the end of the tunnel. And if you're feeling the weight of the end of something great, know that's a sign that what was was something worth celebrating.

forever unfinished...