Happily Ever After

 

When we were children we liked fairy tales. Some of us still do. Books, plays, and movies offer endless new versions or new characters based on old tales. We call stories that end well “fairy tales” because many of them are based on a desperately hopeless situation happily resolved by a magical rescue of some sort caused by a non-human entity – fairy, genie, ghost, magician. Sometimes the “happily” part comes fairly early, as it did for Cinderella; for Sleeping Beauty, it took 100 years. But it always comes, usually delivered by Prince Charming. 

Real life doesn’t always go well or end well. Maybe Prince Charming doesn’t show up, or maybe whatever charms us is a fraud. We begin to think happy endings are only imaginary.  So we grownups don’t believe. God the Father does. He’s all about  happily ever after. He acknowledges the desperately hopeless situations in this world. But nothing is hopeless to Him. Before the world began, He planned a happy ending.

To the Jews, He says, “Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the LORD your God…  I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten… You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed.” Joel 2:23,26.

To widows and orphans and the lonely ones: “A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity.” Ps 68:5,6

To His faithful ones who are persecuted: “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” James 1:12

And to all believers: “the King will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world – into eternal life.” Matt. 25:34,46.

God is focused on the eternal, which we call “ever after.” He wants the very best for us. And it’s not a fairy tale. The “happily” doesn’t just happen. Our Prince endured the extreme opposite of “happily” -- excruciating pain, devastating humiliation, ignominious death. But He, “for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Heb. 12:2. That was His choice. Now we have the choice – we choose to accept or reject God Himself.  Our Happily Ever After doesn’t come by this world’s Prince Charming, it is personally delivered by the true Prince of Peace.

--Lynda Shenefield