You know that part of the movie, the part where everything has gone completely wrong? Relationships are broken, things have been lost, no one is with the person they're supposed to be with (the one you've been rooting for the whole time), and the main character is alone in a bathroom and slides down the tile wall and cries?
In the movie of my life, that's the part I'm in.
Except this is real life, and it lasts for a hundred years instead of for only two hours, so the lonely broken bathroom part can last for ages instead of just for ten minutes.
Except this is real life, so there's no guarantee that it's going to work out just right in the end (because who would choose to watch a movie that doesn't have a happy ending?).
Except this is real life, so there is no dramatic, romantic, climactic moment when the man realizes that it's all just been a big mistake and rushes to save his damsel in distress.
This is real life, and the pain is real and the loss is real and the loneliness is real. But you know what else is real? Something that they hardly ever have in those movies? The thing that is really the most important part of the movie?
God is real. My entire life has been turned upside down, nothing is the way I wanted it to be, and all of my dreams and plans have been completely scrapped. The pages ripped out. The script erased. And yet, in so much brokenness and sadness, in the swirl of everything completely changing in one single moment, God has stayed the same. Just as firm, just as constant, just as good as he was yesterday and the day before and will be tomorrow and the day after.
I've always been such a firm believer in fairytales, in the thrilling, perfect, blissful love that we read about in books and watch in movies. I've also always been a firm believer in the truth lie that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself... you have to plan it out, you have to control it, you have to just make it happen. But God is showing me that the only way to have a happily ever after, the only way to have the desires of your heart, is to just let them go.
Shut up. How ridiculous.
But really. I had absolutely no choice in the way my fairytale ended up going. I fell madly in love with an incredible man and a year and a half later, it all came crashing down. So now, all I can do is just give it to God. Every day, I just take a deep breath, lay all of my desires and expectations down, and move. Forward. Into the day. Step after step. One foot in front of the other.
It's miserable. It's lonely. It's hard. I cry. But all I have now are the promises of the Lord, and so I cling to him. It's the only way. It's all I can do. I have strength for nothing else, and so every day I just pick up my cross and follow him. Luke 1:45 says "Blessed is she who believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her." And I'm believing... I'm hoping, enduring this and doing my best to be faithful and obedient and to walk in confidence and grace. I'm determined to worship Him, even as I'm waiting on Him.
And I realize that in these things, God isn't just going to give me a happily ever after, the end. He's going to give me life, and life more abundantly! So why would I ever settle for a happily ever after of my own engineering, when I can just let God write my story for me and have the rest of my life to find joy in Him, who never ever fails? He says that his plans are better than ours, that he will exceed our wildest expectations... and so for that, I will wait. Patiently. Expectantly. Hopefully. Faithfully. And always, always moving forward.
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