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Last Saturday I finished listening to “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurty in audio book format.  It was a great book, but reminded me of a hard truth.

The story itself is about a group of cowboys who take cattle to Montana.  Along the way, most of them die. And the ones who don’t die are completely changed.  It ends with a man taking his friends coffin from Montana all the way to Texas (around 3,000 miles) so it could be buried.

Books like this are kind of shocking because we are use to having stories that end with “and they all lived happily ever after.”

But I’m thankful this book doesn’t end with one….

because life often doesn’t have a happy ending.  

Now of course, in eternity we will experience the presence of God without any pain or suffering. But on this earth, we still experience sorrow, injustice, and suffering.  The truth is we should EXPECT bad things to happen because Satan hates the plan of God.  So those who serve the Lord are going to be attacked!

I am thankful for Lonesome Dove because it does show us life doesn’t always have a happy ending.

But we can persevere anyway.

The men and women in this book experience one setback after another.  But in the midst of all their trials, they remained faithful.  After getting knocked down they dusted themselves off, got back up, and tried again.

As Christians we have greater hope than these cowboys because the Lord shows us He is honored by faithfulness. Those who don’t expect the happy ending but a daily battle, and fight with the help of the Lord bring Him great joy.  And because Christ has conquered all of our trials we don’t have to fix the problem, we just have to be faithful.

I wish life gave us happy endings every time….but it won’t.

yet those endings don’t have to define us.

We get up, and faithfully follow the Lord on good and bad days.  Looking forward to the moment He will wipe away all tears from our eyes.