I had no choice but to be a Christian. In finale season–we might even call this past week “Finale Week” (do people do that?  I’m not tuned-in enough to know)–I am a hopeless case.  I troll the internets for spoilers, I voraciously watch and rewatch a show’s episodes leading up to the last installment before summer, all to try to have some kind of extra clue of how it will all turn out.

I am the person who reads the last chapter of a novel before she gets to the mid-way point of a book.  I watch movies and mini-series over and over and over again, enjoying them more each time I do so, because I know how it’s all going to turn out.  Knowing the ending doesn’t spoil things for me; I’m better able to enjoy the intricacies of the plot when I know where it’s headed.

And so, I had to be a Christian.  Of course, I’ve believed in God as revealed in Jesus Christ since before I can remember, and perhaps it’s that belief that has formed me to be so obsessed with discovering the end of every story, I know the ending of my story and the end of the story of the world, and so I am desperate to know the end of all the other little stories around me.

The end of the Story of the World is the greatest romantic ending ever; having gone to prepare a place for his beloved, the church (all people who love God), God returns in the flesh of Jesus to bring us to be with him forever.  Whatever happens the rest of today, or the rest of 2015, or the rest of our lives, we know what our end will be–for me, that makes all the difference in enjoying the journey.

(artwork via wikipedia from Grunewald’s Issenheim Altarpiece series; The Resurrection)