A Happy Ending.

Here's what I love: a happy ending.

This photo is from 4 years ago.  Pink jerseys!

Once upon a time there was a sixth grade girl who decided to try out for her school soccer team.  This little girl had been playing soccer since she was 5 years old.  She loved sports and was fast and fearless.   Her parents were surprised at her gumption and determination to try out for a mostly 7^th and 8^th grade team.  Her mom secretly wondered if she would make the team.  Her dad helped her run drills.  Finally, it was time for tryouts.  She ran fast, worked hard, and did her best.  But she was not one of the first 9 girls chosen for the team.  Instead, she was told to come back for a second day of tryouts.  Over the weekend, the girl worked some more with her dad on drills.  She decided not to give up.

Tiny little soccer player.

She prayed that she would make the team.

She tried out again.

During those tryouts, she ran even faster and did even better than she did at the first day of tryouts.  But, when tryouts were over, the coach said he would post the list the next morning.

And so, she waited.

And she prayed that she would make the team.

The following morning, she walked into school and found the list on the windows next to the office.  She ran her finger down the list of names.  Alphabetically, she would be near the top, but instead, there, near the bottom she found her name. 

She had made the soccer team!

Elation, joyous shouting, jumping up and down—she did all of that…. (in her head because you gotta play it cool out in the open in a middle school hallway.) 

The End.

Isn’t that a great story!?

She wasn’t the first one chosen and she will definitely be riding the bench a lot on a mostly 7^th and 8^th grade team, but right now, she doesn’t care.  She’s on the team! 

You know how the story could have ended, right?  With the little girl NOT making the team even after all that hard work and fast running and fearless ball handling.  And guess what, there will be days when the story ends differently.  There will be stories in which she will fail and fall and be excluded and skipped over.  There will be stories of pain and heartache and torture.  (Don’t worry, I will tell you those stories as well.)

But, today was a day for a happy story—a success story—a story about when what we wanted was given to us.

Christian Artist, Francesca Battistelli has a song called “Write Your Story” in which she invites God to write His story on her heart.  It’s a catchy tune and I even find myself meaning the words as I sing them. 

“I’m an empty page I’m an open book

write Your story on my heart,

come on a make Your mark.” 

And this line:

“My life—I know it’s never really been mine,

So do with it whatever You like. 

I don’t know what Your plan is, but I know it’s good…”

Christians love to sing likable, meaningful lyrics like this.  And we might even embrace the sentiment.  We might truly offer the blank book of our lives up the Lord for Him to write a story—but what if we don’t like the story??

We’d like for the story to have a happy beginning, a bit of drama to make it interesting, a faithful beau, a cheerful wedding, healthy pregnancies, gorgeous babies, cozy houses, cushy cars, steady jobs, rewarding careers, fun trips, funny friends who care, long lives, little pain, and happy endings.

I mean, we know that life can’t be perfect, but we want the stories of “trouble” to be minimal—fender benders, lost cameras, a broken bone or two (so that people can sign the cast), running out of gas, knocking over a wedding cake, crazy taxi drivers.  These are the conflicts we give the “okay” to in our stories.  But let’s even keep blood, fire, and vomit to a minimum, okay, God?

What if the story includes not making the team, bullying, illness, divorce, homosexuality, hurricanes, bed-rest, miscarriage, job-loss, poverty, autism, no vacations, migraines, friendlessness, death of loved ones, chronic pain, and troublesome teens? 

What then? Are we still going to say: “Write Your story on my heart, God”??  Can we say that and mean it?  Do we really trust that God will work all things together for good? 

Let’s say, we don’t trust Him.  Let’s say we are mad at the story He’s writing.  Let’s say we attempt to take our lives back and write our own story.  Can we really write a better ending than the one He’s already written on the pages of eternity?  I think that is part of why anxiety and worry are such a burden—we are taking on control of our own lives and all that does is put us in a tug-o-war with the Almighty.   I’d even go so far as to say that there are times that the tug-o-war with the pen is part of what causes quite a mess all over several pages.  Fortunately, when we yield, the Master Artist can easily redeem the messes we’ve made.

Then there are those mysterious times, when we’ve yielded and prayed and the story still unfolds badly in our opinion.  We find ourselves in hospitals, courtrooms, or visiting gravesides.  But, you know what, we are in good company in those sorts of stories…we stand next to characters of old who found themselves in storms, jail cells, and lion’s dens.  It would appear to a casual reader, that those people yielded and then got the shaft when it comes to storylines.  They gave their blank book to God and promptly got thrown in a pit, misunderstood, shipwrecked, beaten, covered in boils, or thrown into a fiery furnace.  Good times, eh?

Not so much.  But their story was part of a much bigger story.  I’d go so far as to say our story is as well. 

And you know what?  No matter what happens on page 1048, no matter how many plot twists there are, no matter how much tragedy ensues, the ending…ah then ending.  The ending is going to be good.  More than good…it’s going to be unimaginably, eternally, good. 

So, if you’re in the middle of a good chapter and things are going along swimmingly, thank the Author and keep yielding the blank pages of your heart.  And know that if the chapter is heart-wrenchingly painful right now, the Author is far from finished with your story and it might surprise you just how good it gets.