The End

Jacob worked for Rachel for seven years. I used to wonder how he persevered and held out hope for so long before he finally made Rachel his. Seven years is a long time to wait by anyone’s standards. One of the children in our lives is seven years old, and the mystery of Jacob’s story isn’t quite as stupefying as it once was.

I’ve waited, and I’ve hoped. I’ve watched God work in small and grand ways over the past seven years to interweave our stories, and it all felt like plot points building toward the resolution of being the ones to finish what we started.

For the better part of a decade, my life has been marked with this one question: will we be together in the end? Everything else has changed. My biological children have grown, and I’ve gotten a million years older. But I never stopped beseeching the heavens for an answer to this question.

Nothing definitively told me no. Many events over the years seemed to indicate being a family was a legitimate possibility, but now we’re confronted with the end of this saga. It’s a sudden ending, bringing several years of anticipation to a screeching halt. The answer to “Will we be together in the end?” is veering towards no. In light of that, my version of the story is riddled with plot holes.

I look back at everything that’s happened, and I can’t make sense of it. For seven years, my heart’s been twisted in a knot, but it was more than that. My soul ached. Every time the room fell silent, my mind wandered to them- will we be together? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

I feel like I’m the most tired person to ever live. I kept myself in the race, dragging my ragged heart towards the finish line. I had so much faith I would find something good at the end, something that would send ripples of order and direction to the past. I’ve questioned my purpose and God’s will as I thrashed through neverending brambles. And it’s just been such a long, long race. I’ve been running for so long, I don’t know what to do when the ground beneath me vanishes and the road I’ve dedicated years of my life is no longer traversable.