A New Chapter

There are books that are so spectacular to read that you never want them to end. With every turn of the page you fall deeper and deeper in love with the characters and as the story progresses you find yourself more and more engrossed in their world. You cry when they cry, you smile when they smile, your blood races when theirs does. You reach that point when you feel so much a part of their lives that it also feels like they are a part of yours. Jane Eyre is gracing your breakfast table with her presence, Tom Sawyer’s antics are livening up your monotonous afternoon, and Harry Potter is hiding under the covers with you before bed. Eventually, as you near the last chapter of the book, you begin to mourn the loss of those fictional people to whom you had become so attached. And then once you’ve closed the cover- if you’re anything like me- you reluctantly force yourself to pick up a new book in hopes of filling the empty space in your heart where those old characters once resided with a cast of all new characters.

.      .      .

Hello again. Remember me? I know that it’s been a while. I am sorry for my absence but I do have some reasonable explanations. Most obviously, I am a mother of three children and am therefore very busy (I actually feel that “busy” is a demeaning understatement but I use it for lack of a better word). I am also the wife of a sailor who is rarely home and so when he is home I choose to enjoy our time together rather than sit hunched over the computer desk. Basically, all else suffers when I blog and I’m not always willing to make that trade. These explanations are both true and adequate. But to leave the explanation at that would be unfair, both to me and to my readers. The underlying reason for my two month hiatus is more personal and more complex.

You see, blogging is not as easy as it may seem. It is an intense and laborious undertaking. Each of my blog entries takes me two hours or more to write, edit, and post. But it’s more than that. The process dictates that almost immediately after any given turn of events I must be able to evaluate them- summarize, contextualize, analyze, etc. The side effect of blogging is that I go through my life feeling like both a participant and an observer, all at the same time. Come to find out, playing host to dual personalities is quite taxing on one’s emotional health. A few months ago I realized that the ‘observer’ in me was taking control and rather than actively attempting to find a solution to my problems I was simply sitting down and writing about them. Everything that spewed from my mind was rank with anger, bitterness, and negativity. It was clear to me that I needed to stop blogging and start searching.

So for the past two months I have been on a soul-searching mission; on the hunt for a new perspective. The good news is… I found it!

[I would like to have inserted the details of my quest for clarity here. But in the interest of efficiency, I will save those stories for another time and place.]

.      .      .

Life is a really good book. Just one book. See, I had been looking at everything the wrong way. The problem I was having was that I saw life as a collection of unrelated books. I had come to the end of what I thought was one book and grievously read those final words… “THE END.” Tears welled up in my eyes and streamed down my face. I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to all those characters who had filled my story with so much happiness. Our lives had become intertwined. I also struggled to accept that all the work I’d done to build up a back-story for myself was suddenly going to be bound and shelved. I was attached to my book and I clenched tightly to its cover, hoping that I could prevent the tale from ending.

But life is not a collection of separate books. It is one book. One really good book. The epic kind. Life is the kind of book that contains countless characters and numerous landscapes and multiple time frames. The characters in this book weave themselves in and out of the story, disappearing for a few chapters only to reemerge in a dramatic scene at the plot’s climax. And all that back-story? It follows the main character throughout the tale, from chapter to chapter to chapter, and it builds and builds and builds. Eventually all the past deeds come together in an amazing turn of events that ultimately define the heroes and give them the strength they needs to conquer all.

But there’s more. Just like the best books in all of literature, life will keep you on the edge of your seat. Right when you think that the plot couldn’t thicken any more the author throws in an added twist. But there is comfort to be found in the fact that there is always a resolution. Even when all hope seems lost and we can’t imagine how the heroes could possibly triumph over such immensely overwhelming odds, they amazingly do. There is always hope. The author, the creator, the all-knowing force behind the pen saw the story in full-  from start to finish- and carefully arranged every word so that the book would have a comprehensive conclusion that encompasses elements from every chapter. The writer wrote everything with reason. Therefore, I have found peace in the knowledge that life is one good book.

The fact of the matter is that God is the author writing the book and He recently wrote me a new chapter. I know that some of the characters and scenes in my story are gone for good and that others are only out of the picture for now and bound to reemerge again. I know that my toils and troubles from earlier chapters were not in vain because I can take them with me to the conclusion. I know that there are sure to be more plot twists and cliffhangers in the pages to come. But only God knows how this book will end. The only way for me to find out what's in store for me is just to keep on reading…