When NOT Finishing is a Better Result

I planned for it every year, for way too many years actually. 

I had a tradition to construct a gingerbread house with my kids every December. Trouble is, as they got older, they were less and less interested, while I became more and more desperate to hang on to the tradition. One year we were squeezing it in between homework and a rehearsal in another town. I had everything ready, including special candies I wanted them to ooh and aah over. But mostly, I wanted that finished gingerbread house to sit on my sideboard for the entire Christmas season. I wasn’t after perfection—just completion. 

But as their fatigued middle school brains turned to silliness, my midlife mom brain turned to bossiness. I felt a pressure to finish, to see the result, which I was convinced would bring us all satisfaction. Instead of enjoying the process (and soaking in their preteen personalities while I could), I pushed forward, eliciting tears from many eyes, demanding that they “do the roof” or “outline the walkway” before the buttercream dried out. And before my minivan pulled out of the garage for the next activity. 

That gingerbread house was never completed. And worse, never repeated.

MAKING YOURSELF IRREPLACEABLE

I’ve learned that making the task the point is actually an attempt (perhaps subconscious?) at making yourself irreplaceable.

That belief is not only exhausting, but also detrimental to the ones we love.

Especially once we’re gone.

When you make yourself irreplaceable, you put a time stamp on that which you love. You become a cog in the wheel. Yes, while you live you are viewed as necessary. The wheel turns and everyone is nourished. And then you are gone, an irreplaceable cog in the wheel … it stops turning.

– Keturah Hickman

If we are intent on making ourselves irreplaceable, there may be glory days and completed gingerbread houses, but once we’re gone, they will no longer be possible. (And the associated memories won’t be pleasant ones.) When we fail to become a conduit, our gift expires. The vision ends with us. Instead of flowing through us, the story ends with us. And meaningful legacy is lost.

BECOMING INSTEAD OF COMPLETING

In a previous life, I was a tax accountant. And the big credential for that career path is the CPA certificate. Back in the day, the CPA exam was a paper and pencil, no calculator, twice-a-year opportunity. And it was a beast. As my husband and I prepared for it following grad school, we were advised to not total any of the worksheets or statements. To not complete them. We were told to leave everything untotaled because the rubric did not award any points for totals. And we were just hoping for a passing score on all four parts of that 2-1/2-day exam. It took some conscious effort to leave those ends loose.

I still struggle with leaving things unfinished. From my journal:

 A few months ago I went through a lengthy evaluation at Cleveland Clinic. When I learned I wasn’t going to be listed yet for a new heart, part of me was relieved to not have that huge surgery on the horizon. But part of me was also frustrated. I’ve been plunged back into the middle of the story, when I had imagined the end in sight (post-transplant). 

The frayed edge of my journey has caused this “finisher” some real angst. But, more importantly, it’s changed me. These years of being unhealed, I’ve become more patient, more aware of others living in the messy chapters, those who share my haunting question, “What all will I leave unfinished?”

When we release the pressure to “finish,” we actually open the door to deeper transformation. Living with an incurable condition has taught me that faith, too, is less about arriving at answers, and more about cultivating prayerful humility, inviting transformation along the way.

Because it’s not about completing the gingerbread house.
It’s about who you become together while putting the pieces together.

It’s about who you become together while putting the pieces together.

Don’t get me wrong—I still believe a finished project is a beautiful thing. But sometimes we are so focused on the end result that we miss the wonder and the magic of the process. 

It’s been said that we only get to know our children as children for a very short time. Most of our lives, we will know them as adults. Now I can see that as I was trying to rush them into finishing that gingerbread house, I was—without realizing it—trying to rush them across the finish line of their childhood as well. (What I wouldn’t give for a little middle school silliness now!)

LEAVING A THREAD HANGING

The Land of Not Finished is the only place hope can exist. 

Not to mention lasting legacy.

Without participation a legacy becomes merely a fact of history, and loses a certain quality as a story to be lived and passed on. A true legacy is a story for the making.

– Joe Knight

We need to learn from those who have gone before us, from their successes and their mistakes. And then add to it in a more informed way. But to do that, we must have that legacy’s loose thread to grab onto. We need an unfinished hem, an open loop, so we can tie into the story.

My husband and I have owned a couple of fixer-uppers during our relationship. Some more extensive than others. But each time, he was intent on getting over the finish line, to stop the bleeding on the budget. He still looks shocked when I want to update something. But, is a house ever “finished?” Even if we think it is, someone someday will paint over your painstaking color choice on the walls, replace your amazing find of a light fixture, or possibly even demolish the entire house (happened to us twice). We will hand the project over before it is finally finished.

So it is with the story of our lives.

While I am predisposed to tie up all the loose ends of my day—and my life—maybe that’s not always what we’re called to do. Maybe we are meant to leave some things unfinished. Because that loose thread can become part of a future tapestry. Woven into tomorrow, our unfinished projects and ideas and tasks help form and solidify our legacy, and in God’s narrative, become a bit immortal. 

Our unfinished projects and ideas and tasks help form and solidify our legacy.

We can safely say all this because the Big Project is already done.

Hebrews Chapter 11 mentions some familiar names – Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac. Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Samson, David, Samuel, among others. We call them “faith heroes,” And then verse 13 lets us in on a little secret:

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised;

Hebrews 11:13, NIV

And just in case we missed it, the Spirit repeated in verse 39:

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised,

Hebrews 11:39, NIV

Even these faith giants, this “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) did not receive the things promised, the things they were looking forward to, the things they were banking their lives on. With unfulfilled promises, the story surely seemed unfinished to them as they drew their final breath. And yet, their stories mattered and we, even thousands of years later, picked up their thread and wove it with our own narrative into His story.

The power of not finishing is leaving something for others to build on.

BEING REMEMBERED

Especially as I age with chronic illness, I’m realizing part of our scramble to finish is leaving a legacy—being remembered. 

But what if “UNfinished” is actually better remembered?

The Zeigarnik Effect is the psychological tendency to remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than those that are completed. This happens because incomplete tasks create a state of cognitive tension that keeps them active in our memory until they are resolved. According to Psychology Today, the Zeigarnik Effect is the power of unfinished business to hold a privileged place in memory. 

So maybe what we leave unfinished will form a more memorable legacy. (And maybe that’s what Hebrews 11:13 was getting at all along.)

This Advent, we anticipate the continuation of a story which began before Genesis. An event that fulfilled all the prophesies, but is still not yet completely known.

We don’t have to finish because He did: 

…Jesus said, “It is finished.”

John 19:30, NIV

The Big Plan is taken care of.  And so are we. 

Even if that life list —or that gingerbread house—is never completed.

Listen to this post read by the author HERE.