I have a confession to make. I am a habitual page-skipper. Like stealing cookies from the cookie jar before dinner, I often peek ahead to the last page of a chapter or, gasp, even the last page of the entire book. I can trace this impropriety back to when I started buying my own books. I’d quickly grow insecure of my “loitering” in the aisle at Barnes and Noble or Target and feel a need to expedite my book selection. Surely people were judging my lack of decisiveness, right? I’d quickly scan the first few and last few pages to see if it was worthy of my hard-earned $19.95 and then quickly be on my way to the safety of the check out counter. But later at home cozying up with my brand new book, I’d inevitably find that my sneak peek had either made no sense in the context of the story or it completely ruined the whole storyline for me. Back in the corner of my mind I couldn’t forget the words written on the last page. Almost like a snapshot, they were imprinted into my memory. Shoot! I ruined all the preceding chapters because I tried to connect them to the ending that I already read. And to think I tried to ensure my $19.95 was well spent, but instead I sabotaged my own makeshift “Consumer Report” system.
Last week I chatted with a couple of friends. One is entering into a brand new relationship complete with butterflies flitting about and birds chirping songs in harmony with the breeze. I think the sun is actually shining brighter on her these days. She is happily experiencing all the joys of the newness, but she can’t help but think about the future. It’s only been a week or so and even though she tries to push it out of her mind, she finds herself searching for the guarantee that this one will work, that this time it will be different. “Can we just fast forward a little bit? Can I sneak a peek to the end of this chapter? C’mon what will it hurt?” Tempting as it may be, and believe me, as I divulged earlier, I’m a page skipper, skipping ahead to see what will happen will affect the process in a way that will steal away from the beauty of the experience. Just like the end of a book, knowing the end will make no sense out of the context of living the experience out or even worse, it’ll rob you of the joy of experiencing each day to its fullest because you can’t get the ending out of your mind. “Oh, sure he doesn’t want to go to my work party, that’s because… or I knew he would react this way when I told him about my past because he did this…” Analyzing is best left to the scientists. We get to simply live.
In stark contrast, another friend of mine just entered therapy after it became clear that relationships were not being lived to their fullest. This friend is being asked to read backwards instead of forwards. My friend must reread pages that were painful to read the first time around. I’m sure skipping to the end of therapy, getting to the place where everything is healed seems all too appealing right now, but by reading backwards and reliving the pages that are difficult to read, a different ending is being written.
A different ending.
By inviting God to stand by us in the process and walk through it no matter how impatient or how racked with pain we may be, we get a different ending.
If only my books would’ve had a different ending. Then I wouldn’t have wasted my measly gap paycheck. Don’t waste your $19.95. Live it out. Don’t desire to skip the pages. Because truth is, your new ending is worth way more than $19.95 and God is dying [has died] to write it.
