It is finished

My word for 2025 is finish. Two goals for this year were to get my first book in print and to finish the first draft of my second book. When I published Finding Joy in the West, I wished it had pictures. It still didn’t feel finished.

Then, ten days ago, when I drafted the end of my tour of the east coast, I told people the first draft of Finding Joy in the East was finished. Though I had written about arriving home, the story had gaps. So, as I wrote in Let’s make the last 100 days count, I will continue drafting for another fourteen days.

Technically, I reached my goals. Finding Joy in the West is in print, and draft one of Finding Joy in the East is finished. But will I ever accept that they are finished? I thought, is anything ever really finished?

Now, wait . . .

Before you think I’m being pessimistic, look at what I am learning. When Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished,” He wasn’t saying the story was over. He was saying he had finished the work he had been given to do.

Publishing Finding Joy in the West and completing the first draft of Finding Joy in the East doesn’t mean my journey is finished. It means I’ve done what I was called to do.

At Christmas, we celebrate that Jesus came to earth to begin the work he would one day finish. His birth was not the end of the story, but the start of faithful obedience. If “finished” means being faithful with what we’re given, then maybe the joy isn’t in being done, but in saying yes to what we’re called to do.

*Image by Arnie Bragg from Pixabay

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Joy M. Walker