“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” KJV 2Co 5:1
Endings…
The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning.
~Ivy Baker Priest
Another year is drawing to a close and I feel sad. Just why this is, I don’t understand. But there is something poignant and emotional about endings…like coming to the end of a good book and reading those unwelcome words—The End, or waving goodbye as the family leaves after some special event, or even watching the sun sink slowly into the Gulf waters at the close of day. Something is over, something is lost, something has ended, never to be relived again.
I was thinking about “endings” last evening as I sat on the patio and watched the moon rise in the east, shedding streams of moonbeams over my garden while stars spanned the heavens in a glorious display of God’s handiwork. It was an unusually magnificent presentation. In that mystical way that God reveals Himself to us, I suddenly understood why God hesitates…why He waits…why He delays the Lord’s coming. He, too, must feel that same sadness, to bring about an end to the gospel day, a conclusion of those things familiar, those things we know and love, to bring the curtain down on His own creation, the work of His own hands. Something will be lost.
But then I remember…new beginnings spring from old endings, from the dust and the ash of wreck and ruin, of failure and hopelessness, a new year always begins, bringing hope for our distresses and dreams for the future. We find new courage to face tomorrow and another chance to get it right. We are challenged to try again, to believe again and to live again.
I understand more clearly now and know that when this present life is over and my earthly tabernacle crumbles into the dust, I will rise to a new day, a glorious day, a day filled with hellos and never a goodbye. By faith, I can see it afar, that wonderful day with only a beginning; a day with no ending.
©Ruth Carmichael Ellinger 12/10/10
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