The Two Towers

I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. ~Samwise Gamgee

I tell you right plainly that I do have a hard time watching movies (a recent post on that, here) but I know what it's like to be in this quote, so bare with me as I attempt at entering into Sam's mind, a bit.

There are times we don't want to know the end because how, in all this crazy, sad, broken world can the end be anything but more sadness and brokenness and loss? How can it be good? How can the diseases that invade our bodies and the hurts that keep us awake at night and won't let us get out of bed in the morning; how can the marriages that we think are strongest, break and shatter into millions of pieces; how can the friendships we treasure and hold dear that are suddenly snatched away and rip out part of our heart; how can the children that we long for, who never take a first breath in this world; how can the job loss when we've fought so hard to provide; how can the plans of a lifetime that suddenly crumple in our grip; how can the wedding day we've longed for and prayed for and looked for and planned for be, in a moment, just another dream, another longing, no longer a reality; how can all that's broken and hurting and lost and won't ever be ours to have and hold again, how can it end in any other way than it's begun? How can the cross be anything but a shriveled up hope for redemption?

"How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?"

It's hard to see, this sunshine we're looking for, through the broken clouds. But, "A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer." Will not some of the wonder of Heaven be that it's so "other" from what we've ever experienced? Because of all this sadness and darkness and brokenness that "new day" will shine out all the clearer.

And what we've lost, it's all restored to us at the cross, and Heaven will be so sweet ("sweet" doesn't even capture it) because we can see He did it all well. Not one stroke was laid on needlessly, even if we be too small to understand it.