Why I Need the Happy Ending (and Why That’s Not Weakness)

Let there be light, even in the darkest stories.

The Story That Broke Me

In college, I watched the movie The Painted Veil, and when it ended, I wept bitterly. I wept for the characters and for my own heart, broken in their pain. I searched for the novel in the library, only to slam it shut when I found the movie adaptation had been true. No spoilers here — but if you like heartbreak, go ahead and dive into that story.

I remember agonizing over it. How it should have ended. How I reacted to it. Why was I so pathetically weepy? I spent weeks thinking about it in my spare time, feeling rushes of anger and then accompanying shame.

That story broke me — and it never offered me a hand to get back up.

The Books I Don’t Keep

I remember a number of classics I've read throughout the year in literature classes, ones I still think about with deep sadness to this day. One about a little girl, locked in a closet on an extra-planetary colony, missing the only day of sunshine that will occur during her lifetime. Another about a young woman stoned to death for the sake of tradition.

These stories haunt me. Not because they were badly told, but because they ended without light.

I’ve been told heartbreak is part of human existence, and life has certainly shown me the truth of that. The longer I live, the more pain and sadness I witness. I know the world is complicated and unfair.

But I also know this:

Books don’t need to break me to be honest.

They can show me pain and still leave me with peace.

The Stories That Saved Me

There are stories I’ve returned to again and again, books with torn spines and wrinkled pages because I’ve cried so many healing tears inside them.

In The Blue Castle, Valancy learns she has a terminal illness and finally stands up to a toxic family, finding deep love and freedom in the process.

In Daughter of the Forest, Sorcha sacrifices everything, her voice, her innocence, her safety, to save her brothers. Her journey is brutal, but she finds someone who waits for her, who chooses her despite her pain.

In The Bird and the Sword, a young woman bound to silence is finally given the gift of words and a voice in her own fate.

In Control Me by Michelle Heard, a young woman experiences horrific violence, but the man who loves her gives her space, freedom, and safety to heal.

In Say It’s Forever by A.L. Jackson, two people with broken pasts find redemption, not because their pain is erased, but because it’s honored.

Is it so terrible to heal along with them? To crave stories of bruised women who find agency, personhood, healing, and love?

These are the stories that mend me.

These are the stories that stay.

Why I Write the Way I Do

Spoiler alert for my writing:

I don’t know that this version of me could ever write anything but a happy ending.

You’ll never meet one of my characters who isn’t introspective. They struggle with their broken places, with sexual trauma, physical violence, injustice, shame, and anxiety. They flinch. They freeze. They fawn. They fight themselves. And still, they try.

The problems they face mirror my own: abuse, pain, gender stereotypes, spiritual wounds, the weight of perfectionism. And yet…

My characters always come out on top.

Sometimes it means physical scars.

Sometimes it means learning to live with the internal ones.

But always, it means healing. Always, it means hope.

Because I refuse to leave their stories unfinished.

And maybe the universe will refuse to leave mine unfinished, too.

Why the Happy Ending Matters

Some people dismiss happy endings. They think they’re too easy, too neat, too soft. But to me, and to many of us who carry trauma, a happy ending isn’t silly. It’s vital.

When a book ends in love and safety after pain and darkness, I can’t help but feel hopeful and safe myself. If these characters can do it, so can I.

And it’s not about the wedding, or the baby, or the kiss at sunset.

It’s about what those things represent: freedom, agency, joy, the right to be loved as we are.

A happy ending is a sacred thing.

It says: your pain isn’t the end of your story.

It says: you’re not too broken to be chosen.

It says: grace is real, and it stretches wide enough for you, too.

Grace Over the Rubble

We studied David in church today, and I was reminded: even the heroes of the Bible were sometimes the villains in their own stories.

David was a rapist and a murderer.

Moses killed a man and burned with anger.

Joseph was arrogant.

Jacob was a liar and a cheat.

And yet…

They were still chosen.

They were still loved.

They still mattered.

If my characters are allowed that grace, maybe I am too.

Maybe you are, too.

Dear Reader, If You Need the Light…

If you’ve ever cried over a story that didn’t offer healing…

If you’ve ever felt ashamed for needing hope…

If you’ve ever wanted to throw a book across the room because the ending betrayed your heart…

I want you to know this:

You are not too sensitive.

You are not too soft.

You are allowed to crave stories that walk through the darkness but don’t stay there.

You are allowed to want stories that end in light.

Because your story isn’t over either.

Let there be hope.

Let there be healing.

Let there be happy endings, not because life is always kind, but because we are allowed to imagine a world where grace gets the final word.