Just because you know the end of the story doesn’t mean that you don’t feel the paper between your fingers with each page you turn. Though you’ve seen the destination on that road, you must still take each agonizing step towards it. In the journey, you sometimes taste in joy and are often clouded by heartache, yet each is overshadowed by the promises of an Almighty God who knows the sorrows more intimately than you can. For he bought this moment with every drop of blood in his body. He signed the guarantee with marks carved into his flesh by nails and whips and silenced the debt when he rebuilt the human race from decaying bones and walked from the tomb into the morning light. With that final act, he turned the end of all things into the beginning of an eternity where the tragedy of suffering is instead a story of magnificent beauty.
Yet, you cannot see those pages clearly, for they are too brilliant for you to understand. Even though you know that he will make good of it, the pain must be lived through and the torment endured. You cannot fill the hole that has appeared where your heart once was. You cannot undo the streaks across your face left by the tears and the dust from the fallen tower that was your earthly hopes. You must still sit in the ash after the forest has burned away, for the promise of new and greater glory feels so distant. From your place in the ruble, it is.
You still must count each second waiting in between for God to keep His promise to restore all that is broken. You must still stand in the darkness as you wait for the light.
Yet… count it not as loss. For you are not alone. He knows the depth of the wounds and feels the sting of death. He is woven into the pages and written in every word of the story. He is holding you in every step and meticulously laying out every footprint on this road. He rejoices in the victory over death that can only be arrived at through the darkest of doors and weeps with you in your heartache as you stand there left behind.
This is not the end. This is not the beginning. This is the story of the Infinite and how marvelous it is that he carries you endlessly into forever. And one day, you will turn that next page and suddenly understand. You are finally alive!