The End of the World: Can It Please Happen Today?

For years, I’ve eagerly awaited this day. This most ultimate day that would, in fact, supposedly finally but probably not become Earth’s very last. The end of the world.

It’s one part affinity for sarcasm and another part legitimate longing for heaven. You either get my sense of humor and sense of “home” (or lack thereof), or you don’t.

What I didn’t expect — what none of us could have expected — was that just a week before reaching the end of the Mayans’ calendar, we’d first endure another doomsday. One juxtaposing gunshots with elementary desktops. Shy and boisterous children alike suddenly catapulted into unfathomable stillness. Lively homes turned lifeless, forever altered.

Parents repeatedly replaying the last words they unknowingly ever spoke to their precious little ones, now lost.

Am I alone in longing for the end of the world today? 

This Mayan calendar prophesy thing has been a running joke for quite a few years now, but now that we’re finally here: can it just effing happen? Can we wake up on this seemingly innocent though long hyped Friday morning and not have to go to sleep tonight?

Can today please be the end of the world already?

As a Christian, my hope for the “end of the world” involves Christ’s return. Call it “The Rapture,” call it the “Apocalypse,” call it “vanishing in the blink of an eye” or whatever fancy phrase you’d like.

I call it going Home. And gosh I want it so bad.

Ever since moving from Pennsylvania to Georgia as a timid 12-year-old kid, I’ve been restless. So restless.

College in southern Georgia.

College in northeast Georgia.

A summer studying abroad in the UK.

A new start in southern California.

A summer in Milwaukee.

Back to California.

Another summer in North Carolina.

Back to California. Again.

Korea?

I’ve treasured all my travels, and sure, there’s plenty more I’d love to see/experience in life. But if I crossed life’s finish line today, I’d be okay with that. More than okay.

That’s not to say I’m suicidal. Not exactly my ideal route for “crossing the finish line.”

But am I weary? Worn? Burdened by senseless shootings and unforgiving superstorms and that same homeless woman I drive past every night home from work?

Yes. All of the above and more. So much more than my words feebly fail to articulate.

I want today to be the end of the world. I want it everyday. For a better story to replace this broken one. One with pages speaking of overarching shelter and unspeakable Love. A brand new story nobody wants to see end. One that, in fact, never does end.

When Christians are asked why God allows massive hurricanes or mass shootings, we often respond, “It’s just part of His plan. His perfect plan. He’s in total control.”

But that’s obnoxious. Utterly insulting to someone whose wedding albums and vehicles and entire homes were destroyed — or infinitely worse, to someone whose larger-than-life five-year-old was just gunned down for no reason whatsoever.

God’s plan? God’s in control? Of this?

There are no words. No rosy bow to tie onto something beyond the boundaries of explanation.

I can’t explain Hurricane Sandy or Sandy Hook, and neither can you.

All I and you and any of us can do is collectively grieve, striving together for the hardest thing we could ever attempt to grasp: hope.

Throughout Scripture, throughout my own quarter-century life, and throughout the testimonies of precious loved ones’ lives too, my God has proven Himself resilient, fully capable of raising impossible roses from emphatic ashes.

Renewing the flesh and livelihood of lepers previously outcast for years. Their entire lives.

Setting millions free from centuries of slavery, oppression. Their entire lives, and their parents’ parents’ parents’ entire lives too.

Rescuing me from lifeless stories, delivering me to a fulfilling new life in California. Twice.

I read about it, I see it in others, and I see it in my own life: unspeakable heartache giving birth to undeniable light. Life-restoring bows miraculously tied onto stories drenched with death.

I yearn for the hope that this same God is fast tying the bow on humanity’s collective story. Preparing to close this cover and open a brand new one soon. Very soon.

Whether this new story commences before the date yields to December 22 remains to be seen.

But I do hope the end of the world happens before we know it. That our collective tears will soon be wiped away and indeed remembered no more. That this seemingly horrifying “end of the world” notion actually becomes the most beautiful story any of us could fathom.