E33 | Your Story Isn’t Over: Trusting God in an Unfinished Chapter

How do you trust God when you cannot see how your story will end?

In this episode of The Living Story, Tennille shares encouragement for Christian women facing heartbreak, unanswered prayers, grief, uncertainty, and unexpected endings. A quiet moment in her church helped her realize that a painful chapter had ended, but God had continued writing.

Through the biblical stories of Naomi in the Book of Ruth and Joseph in Genesis, this episode explores how to hold on to hope, heal after disappointment, release control, and trust God in an unfinished chapter.

If fear, rejection, or an old wound is shaping how you see your future, this conversation will remind you that healing does not require perfection. Your current chapter may be painful and unfinished, but it is not your whole story. God is still writing.

Transcript

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a few weeks ago, I was sitting in the back of my church when I realized something. A chapter of my life had ended, and for the first time, I wasn't grieving what I had lost. I was grateful for what God had done while I was there. That moment changed how I see The Living Story because for a long time, I thought this podcast was about helping people understand their stories. But somewhere along the way, I realized it is actually about protecting hope. Because if we lose hope, we stop believing God is still writing. And if we stop believing He is still writing, we start living as though our hardest chapter has the final word, and that is what I wanna talk about today Hello, friend. Welcome or welcome back to The Living Story. It has been a little while since we have sat together like this. I thought I needed to return with everything figured out. I thought I needed to explain where I had been, what had happened, and what God had taught me through all of it. But I don't have everything figured out. I'm returning with one moment and one realization It was a Sunday morning, and I was sitting toward the back of the sanctuary before teaching Sunday school. As I waited, I started to look around the room. I looked toward the front where I usually sit. I looked at the altar. I looked at the people gathering and the students beginning to arrive. and the, the sanctuary was flooded with worship music And no one else knew I was sitting there looking back at a year and a half of my life, But that's what I was doing. Eighteen months may not sound like a long time, but so much had happened in this room. When I first arrived at the church, there was a relationship. There was hope attached to it. There was a future I thought might be unfolding. I entered that sanctuary believing I understood what the chapter was going to be about. Then the relationship ended. The future I had imagined ended with it. For a while, walking into that, into that sanctuary meant walking into all those memories. I remembered who brought me there. I remember who used to sit next to me. I remember what I had hoped for. I remembered the questions I carried after everything changed. I remembered crying at the altar and asking God what had happened. But that Sunday, as I sat in the back, I realized that the relationship was not the only story that sanctuary held. The altar was not only the place where I cried Over what ended. It was also the place where I decided to be baptized. When I first walked into that church, I didn't know that I would choose to be baptized again. I didn't know how my relationship with God would change. I didn't know about the friendships I would form. That I had no idea I would eventually be sitting in the back of that same sanctuary preparing to teach Sunday school. Then the sanctuary was flooded wi-with more worshipers and more of the students. They began arriving, and there were waves and the smiles, and then my other ones that would, like, avoid the look, their gaze in my direction. but for the most part, there were children happy to see me, and I realized that while I had been focused on the chapter that ended, God had continued writing. He had given me a community. He had deepened my faith. He had led me to baptism. He had given me opportunities to serve and teach. He had made me a part of the faith stories of other people. The relationship mattered. The heartbreak mattered. but they were not the only things that happened there. I looked around the sanctuary and thought, "Look at everything God did." Not everything I lost, everything He did. And that was when I realized that the page had already turned. I had been so close to the story that I hadn't noticed I was already living in another chapter So before this pause, I had spent 10 episodes talking about what it means when we never receive our why. I explored the questions we ask after something ends. Why did this happen? Why did God allow it? Why didn't I receive the answer I wanted? What do we do when no explanation feels sufficient? That series came from something real. It came from my healing process and from my attempt to understand my own story. And I'm grateful I shared it. But after completing those 10 episodes, life brought me into new situations that stirred some familiar emotions. I began hearing some of the same questions inside myself. I felt pulled to return to the microphone and process another version of that, of that same pain, and I stopped. Not because those feelings weren't real, not because I had suddenly become completely healed and nothing could touch me again. I stopped because I didn't want The Living Story to become a place where I repeatedly documented every disappointment while it was happening. I didn't want pain to become the main character. I didn't want every new season to lead me back to the same conclusion. And And I didn't want to keep telling women, "Your story isn't over," while quietly living as though one painful part of my life had become the whole story. I needed to understand what the living story was becoming. The answers began in that sanctuary that morning, but it became clear when I happened to just pick up my Bible and decide to or be prompted to read the Book of Ruth. The first time I read Ruth, I was looking for the relationship story. I saw Ruth, I saw Boaz, I saw loyalty, love, provision, and redemption. I saw the possibility of beginning again after loss, and that was what I needed from the story at that time. I think that happens when we read the Bible. We approach a passage carrying the questions of our current season. We notice what speaks to the place where we are. I was drawn to Ruth's story. I wanted to see how her life unfolded. I wanted to understand the relationship. I wanted to see how God could create a new beginning after something had ended But this time when I read Ruth I was drawn to Naomi. I read her words. I knew she had lost her husband and her sons. But I was so focused on Ruth's story that I didn't really stop with Naomi. She was part of the story, but she wasn't yet the person I recognize. she was part of the story, but she wasn't yet the person I recognize. The words hadn't changed, but I had. This time, I encountered Naomi. When Naomi returns to Bethlehem, the women of the town ask, "Can this be Naomi?" And Naomi tells them, "Don't call me Naomi. Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter." Then she says, "I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty." The second time I read those words, I stopped. I understood her. I felt Naomi. I could understand why she said what she said. I could imagine how she said it. She left Bethlehem with her husband and two sons. She returned without them. She was grieving people she loved, but she was also grieving the future she believed she would have with them. So when the women called her Naomi, A name associated with pleasantness, she could no longer recognize herself in that name. She wanted a name that reflected what life felt like now. Mara, bitter. I don't think Naomi was trying to create a theological statement for generations of people to analyze. I think she was telling the truth about how her life felt from the page she was living. "I went away full, but I came back empty." But as readers, we can see something Naomi couldn't see. Ruth was standing beside her. Naomi said she had returned empty to Bethlehem while carrying a relationship that would become part of her restoration. She couldn't see Boaz yet. She couldn't see the provision that was ahead. She couldn't see the child who would eventually be placed in her arms. She couldn't see how her family's story would connect to David and eventually to Jesus. Naomi knew what she had lost. She didn't yet know what God was still writing. That doesn't make her grief dishonest. Her grief was real. But grief was not the final meaning of her story. The first time I read Ruth, I saw the love story. The second time, I saw the woman who couldn't yet imagine that anything remained beyond her loss and her grief. And I think that's part of what it means when scripture tells that the Word of God is living and active. We can return to the same passage in another season and encounter something we couldn't see before. The words are the same, but life has changed us. The first time, Ruth gave me hope for love. The second time, Naomi gave me language for loss. And the whole story reminded me that what we feel on one page may be real without being the final meaning of our lives. Then I started thinking about Joseph When I first read about Joseph in Genesis, I believe it was chapter 37 or so, we, we know We, we read his story and we know where it's going. We know the prison is not the end. We know Pharaoh will have a dream. We know someone will remember that Joseph can interpret the dreams, and we know Joseph will be called out of prison. We know he will be given authority. And then we know he will eventually stand in front of his brothers, the ones who betrayed him, and recognize that God used what others intended for harm, for good. But Joseph didn't know any of that while he was in prison. He didn't know what the outcome was gonna be. He didn't even have an inkling of what was waiting on the other side. From Joseph's perspective, he had been betrayed by his brothers, sold, taken away from his home, falsely accused after trying to do the right thing, imprisoned, then forgotten by someone he had helped. We read his story with the next page in our hands. Joseph had to live it without knowing the end. So did Naomi, That is where hope is required. Hope isn't necessary when we're reading the book, when we're reading the Bible, because we know exactly how things will work out. We can continue to read, we turn a page, and we know where the story is going. And if you read it multiple times, then you already know what's coming ahead. However, for us, hope is necessary because we don't. Hope is what we hold when the prison still looks like a prison. Hope is what we need when we feel empty and can't yet recognize what God has allowed to remain. Hope says, "This chapter is real, but I don't know the whole story yet." This is what stories do, especially the stories in Scripture. They give us somewhere to see ourselves. At one point, we may recognize Ruth. In another season, we understand and feel Naomi. Sometimes we are Joseph holding on while life feels deeply unfair. Sometimes we're reading from the other side and can finally see that God was working in places that once appeared empty. The story hasn't changed. The place where it meets us has. And perhaps that is why we need to keep returning to Scripture. We aren't the same people every time we open it. Life gives us new questions. Loss gives us new language. Healing gives us new eyes and new perspectives. A passage we once read quickly can become the very place where God meets us. And if you know me, you know I love stories. I love books. I love notebooks, journals, pens. I like writing things down and finding the thread that connects one moment to another. sense of things. And if I'm honest, I also like holding the pen. I like knowing where the story is going. I like understanding what a chapter means. I like being able to see the lesson, the resolution the character development and what is supposed to happen next. And as a true teacher that I am, I like having a plan. but faith sometimes requires us to live on a page we wouldn't have written for ourselves while trusting an ending we cannot see. And letting go of the pen is hard. So hard. It is hard to release the ending we imagined. It's hard to stop trying to make every person behave according to the role we gave them in our story. It is hard to accept that God may be writing something good without writing exactly what we requested and what we prayed for exactly to the way that we wanted it to be written But letting go of the pen doesn't mean becoming passive. It doesn't mean having no desires. It doesn't mean making no decisions, accepting mistreatment, or refusing to take responsibilities for our lives. We still make choices. We still tell the truth. We still set boundaries, and we still take the next faithful step. Letting go of the pen means releasing the belief that our preferred ending is the only ending through which God can be good And that's the thing. It-- we try to write this story and We can't. We can't see the entire story, but God does. And it means accepting that we are living the story, but we are not its ultimate author So that realization clarified something for me. The living story can't only be about analyzing where we are in our stories. It can't be about only identifying the wound, examining the loss, or understanding why something affected us. Those things matter. They do. But understanding the story is not the final destination. The destination is hope. Not false hope. Not the promise that every relationship will be restored. Not the promise that we will receive every ending we want. Not the idea that if we pray perfectly, life will follow our plans. The hope I want us to protect is deeper than that. It is a hope that says God isn't finished simply because I can't see what's coming next. It is a faith to believe that the page I'm living is not the only page God is writing. It is a willingness to loosen my grip on the pen and trust that God can see what I can't. This is what I understood while sitting in the back of the sanctuary. I thought I was looking at a room that held the memory of what ended, But I was also looking at the altar where I made a choice to get baptized. I was looking at the community God had given me The friends that I've made, the mentor, my pastor And I was preparing to teach students whose lives have become connected to mine. I thought I was looking at one ending. God allowed me, in that moment, to see how much life had continued beyond it. And this was a page that I don't think I knew was going to be written When I was sitting in that pain and that hurt and that grief, I didn't see what I saw at that moment in the sanctuary. And maybe you're on a page you wouldn't have written. Maybe you understand Naomi because you know what it's like, to compare what remains with what you lost. Maybe you understand Joseph because you're trying to remain faithful in a situation that feels deeply unfair. Maybe you are doing everything you know to do, but you still have no idea of what is waiting on the other side. I can't tell you exactly how your story will unfold, but I can remind you of what Naomi and Joseph couldn't see from the pages they were living. God was not finished, and he is not finished with you. You don't have to pretend this chapter doesn't hurt. You don't have to call the prison a palace. You don't have to call loss a blessing before you are ready. You're allowed to tell the truth about the page you are living. But don't mistake this page for the whole story So before you leave, I want to pray this prayer for you and for myself too. Father, thank you for meeting us in the unfinished chapters. Thank you for the stories in scripture that remind us that your work is not limited to what we can currently see. for the woman who feels like Naomi, meet her in her grief. For the woman who feels like Joseph, strengthen her while she waits. help us tell the truth about what hurts without allowing pain to write the ending. Give us the courage to loosen our grip on the pen. Teach us to take the next faithful step while trusting you with the pages we can't see. Protect our hope, Lord. Remind us that you are still present, still faithful, and still working. In Jesus' name, amen. My friend, thank you for sitting with me today. This is why I'm returning. The Living Story is a place where we will tell the truth about our stories, encounter them through scripture, and protect hope while we are still living in the middle. We may not know what happens next. Naomi didn't, Joseph didn't, and so many other countless people in the Bible didn't. But God did. And the same God who held their complete stories is holding yours. As hard as it may be, loosen your grip on the pen. Your story is still being written. Grace and peace, and welcome back to The Living Story