It Is Not the End

Submitted Anonymously

You were small once.
Bare feet on spring grass,
fingers sticky from a chocolate bunny,
eyes wide at the lilies on the pulpit.
You didn’t know why they sang so loud
or why your mother cried during the last verse.
You only knew—today felt different.
Like something had opened.

Years move like shadows stretching.
You grow, you ache,
you make promises you mean to keep.
Some break. Some don’t.
You hold hands in hospital rooms.
You hold babies by the window.
You sing in pews,
and sometimes cry where no one sees.

Faith becomes more than the stories
you trusted before life ever asked you to.
It’s what steadies your hands
when your plans snap as branches in a storm.
It’s what keeps you from shaking
when prayers come back in silence.
You still whisper them.
Even when.

Even when the silence is louder than the prayer.
Even when hope feels foolish.
Even when the miracle never came.
Even when you doubt what you once believed.
Even when all you can do is breathe His name.

One evening,
a whisper from the One who wept and rose.
“It is not the end.”
Not a sermon, not a shout—
just a hush in your chest
as if the garden was calling again.

He rose.
You remember that now.
Not in theory,
but in the way your grief stirs
when the sun warms the headstone.
The way you still believe
that He walks ahead of you
through every sealed door.

The clock ticks.
You feel it more.
Old friends go home before you.
Your bones ache to be released.
You don’t fear the dark,
just the waiting.

But even that will pass.

Because the stone was rolled.
Because the silence was broken.
Because the garden is still growing.
Because He is not there—He is risen.

And so, one morning,
when the light breaks
not on your window,
but on your soul—
you will rise, too.

And you will know
what all of this meant.

Read more poems in our Verses of Faith collection

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