Another Chapter....

Have you ever been reading a book and look up to notice there are only 1-2 chapters left and you realize:


This story can't possibly resolve itself in the next two chapters....


Your heart knows that the book is going to leave you waiting.....and no matter how good it was, no matter how captivating it was, you feel the nature of expectancy in waiting for the next.


I remember seeing Lord of the Rings the "Two Towers" in the theatre. I had waited to see the "Fellowship of the Ring' right before the second one came out so that I wouldn't have to wait.  Even though I knew the story line, and even the spiritual allegory of the triumph of good, I still left the theatre busting at the seams for the "Return of the King"...... 


Over a year later, as I sat and watched the end of the trilogy, I wept...feeling chains and burdens lifting off of me. I had carried the ring with Frodo all this time. I had been walking through every day life worried about the ending, worried about him clinging to the icy rock, climbing, all alone......It wasn't until I left the theatre that I felt the relief of the finished story....


The ending of a story can be felt....you know when a story is ended...when the loose ends are tied up...when your heart can settle into the experience.


This is where I am, left at the end of a book- a book that I thought was the end of our "trilogy".  I was planning on allowing my heart to settle after years of feeling "unfinished"...after feeling the deep desire to watch God write the ending to this chapter in our lives.  


As I came near to that ending...a twist, a deep plot thickening twist....one that would change the depths of the characters forever...a conflict rising out of the last few chapters...


I thought...This can't be happening. So,  I asked the Lord to work a miracle...to do what most authors can't.  Rescue..... Fix......


Instead, He ended that book..abruptly. Without even hinting at what would follow.


So, here I am...left with the same feeling.  Sitting with the weight and burden of what will follow.  


Trying my best to release and surrender to the Author's plans.....but anticipating His creative masterpiece.