from the previous page to this and back again

Maybe I am forcing myself to try to see the good in it all and it will come crashing down on me later and I won’t be able to pretend, but, for now, I am encouraged and uneasily content. I have often looked at my life as a book. All people’s lives, for that matter. Since I started writing books, this has been even more true for me. While I don’t believe in pre-destination, I do believe God has already read my book. He knows what’s in the next chapter, He knows how it ends. To me, that doesn’t mean he spelled it all out, He just knows what is going to happen and allows it. In writing my novels I have an idea how the book will go. There are certain events that I know will take place; however, it is ridiculously typical for my characters to go down completely different paths that I didn’t see coming, sometimes changing the nuances of their final story, sometimes it is just a different direction leading to the same event. What is satisfying to me, both in what I write and the books I most love to read is that when certain events end or take a hiatus, I can go back and live them again. Once they have been read, they don’t disappear; they are still there to be read again, they are still there to affect the outcome of the story. Sometimes events circle back around to bring situations to fruition. Other times, they simply change what will happen. Right now, this is how I see Chad and me. We got to be vital chapters in each other’s novel, our lives. Just because the chapter ends and the page turns, none of what transpired is erased or negated. It is there to relive and there to affect the next chapters. While I don’t know the end, and I have little faith, it brings me hope that these chapters in our lives will come full circle and tie in at the end, simply having a turbulent plot twist in the middle. If it doesn’t, the chapters are still there to be read again and to effect the present. These chapters are just as important as the chapters to come. The chapters are written in both of our books, and, I’d like think that those pages, at least, are edged in gold leaf and shine brightly, enticing to be read again and to be vital for the upcoming lines.