Sad stories are my least favorite sort of stories. I can deal with the sorrow in the beginning or in the middle of the story, but a sad ending spoils the whole book for me. Give me a sweet or bittersweet or hopeful or happy ending. As a Christian man I refuse to settle for a sorrowful tragedy as the plot line to my life’s story.

It is difficult to be creative, or productive, when sad. The temptation is to sink deeper and deeper into despair and buy the lie that life is meaningless. Manic depressive illness has shown me despair on more than one occasion. Where does one go when they’ve truly hit bottom? Those are varying plot lines for different sorts of characters. I went to Jesus and I’ve never been ashamed of that choice.

An hour ago, thirty minutes ago even, I was in a bit of…