Closed Doors

Some doors close quietly, making it hard to even realize they are closed.

Others, well, they slam shut!

Those are the ones that make your bones rattle, and you blink from the dust that flies.

Those are the ones where catching your breath seems a feat of epic proportions.

Those are also the ones where you wonder what you did wrong – hours of sleepless nights picking it all apart.

Playing and replaying every word, every movement.

Hearing over and over again the slamming of the door.

The silence of no one having answers to the questions that haunt and torment your mind and heart.

Days of arguing with yourself, and those around you, that you must not be worth much these days because of this slammed-shut door.

I tried too hard? 

Or did I not try hard enough?

I worked too much? 

Or did I not put in enough hours?

I fought so long to fit my worth, my value, into the shape of the door that slammed shut, and I cannot open now.

But, I worked so hard for what I still don’t have.

I dreamed, I hoped, I even prayed.

Why? 

Why did I spend all that time, all that energy?

Now, as the dust begins to settle, I wonder what to do, where to go.

Most of all, I question HOW to go on.

Dare I hope that today I will feel the smallest stirring, almost like a light slipping under the crack of another door that I had not noticed being there before now?

A soft reminder, quiet Mercy, Truth that is more than the loss –

I am not being pushed out.

I am being led away.

Away from the places that are too small for the fullness God is quietly forming and building inside of me.

Away from what can no longer hold the weight of His calling over my life.

Away from air where my spirit had to shrink just to breathe.

Doors that have closed because I outgrew them – without even realizing it.

Just perhaps, the slam was not rejection – but redirection.

God’s act of protection.

I am trying hard to believe that these closed doors are not the end of my story.

But they are the guardrails to keep me from falling off the cliff’s edge.

They are the Shepherd’s staff, pulling me back from wolves I never saw.

They are Mercy that I misunderstood to be punishment.

Closed doors not to be opened, leading me down a hallway to another door that will open.

The One Who guides my steps and orders my ways, knows exactly where my feet need to go next.

He is guiding me to safer ground, wider spaces, better blessings.

My hope, my prayer –

One day I will look back, with that child smile, and whisper through grateful tears:

Thank You God, that the door closed.

Because if it had not, I would never have lived to walk through the one door You have now opened.