A Locked Door Can Open Opportunities
Life is a journey filled with opportunities.
You start as a young kid, living a simple and innocent life. Then, as you experience various things you grow. You begin making choices, and if you are like me many of those are based on pleasure and what seems fun. For me those choices led to a point where I was burying myself, but instead of climbing out of the hole I just kept digging deeper and deeper. I kept running from life’s problems and landing in a pit, at times it felt like the pit of hell.
Those around me tried to help. At one point my parents had given me a house, fully furnished and ready to move in for a fresh start. My only responsibility was to maintain the utilities. That certainly helped the physical needs I had, but the root of my problem was deeper. I was leaning on my own understanding and putting all my trust and faith in things of this world. It was not long before the electricity, gas and water were disconnected. Leaning to my own thoughts and abilities for a solution I started going to my parent’s house for meals and showers. After all, my parents wanted to help; unfortunately, that help was enabling me to continue with my negative behavior.
One day as I walked up to the house I pulled on the screen door, but it was locked. Being in a small town we never locked our door, but in that moment my mom felt that was the only solution. She came to the screen, never unlocking or opening it, just looking at me through the glass. With a tear in her eye she explained, “you can’t come in here anymore, until you get your life together you are not welcomed here.” Today I look back and imagine that was probably the hardest thing she had to do. But, she knew that she had trained me up in the way I should go, and while I had departed from that for a moment, she was counting on the Lord to bring me back.
My mother was not the only one with a tear that day, I cried all the way back to the house they had given me. I finally asked God what I needed to do. I realized what my family had been doing to help me and how foolish I had been. I waited a couple of days before calling my mother. I explained I needed help and she walked with me through a series of doors, each one opened by God and leading me into a better place. My relationship with my family improved and I was able to experience the love my mother had for me. Even as she explained how I had really hurt her I could see her love and peaceful disposition as she saw me walking with the Lord, door by door.
By the grace of God, my mother got to see me change. She didn’t get to see all that I wanted her to see, but I thank God that I am no longer the disappointment that I was for her, or my family. Life is better, and I am doing the will of God to the best of my ability. I am grateful for my family and my friends but mostly, to the Lord , who have given me many opportunities.
The door of tough love can be heavy and hard to close, but sometimes that is the only way to get someone to draw closer to the one who created them, so that He can lead them through the doors He has for them. As Matthew 7:7 says “keep on asking, and it will be given you; keep on seeking, and you will find; keep on knocking, and it will be opened to you.”
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