Day 22

The Doors of Dreams

The most obvious and immediate closed door I thought of happened almost two years ago now. In my eight year at Browns Point UMC, I was completely surprised when the district superintendent called and asked me to think about moving to another church.

I talked it over with Whitney, thought and prayed about it, and the next day called to say "no thank you," just as the "door closed." We were scheduled to meet with a committee from the new church. If there were no insurmountable obstacles, we would be leaving our home and community of eight and half years. Someone had closed and locked the door to the familiar and comfortable place we'd known. For the next three months, I worked through my grief and tried to prepare for the move, but periodically, I'd check to see if someone had accidentally left the door unlocked. No one had.

Looking through my journal at the time, I was reminded of a series of dreams that I had during those three months. Though each was different, they shared a common theme - houses with open doors. The dreams also progressed to more and more openness.

In one of the first dreams, I knocked on the door of an unfamiliar house, but no one answered. For whatever reason, I uncharacteristically tried the door and it opened. I went in where I was met by people who were not surprised to see me. Nor were they surprised that I'd opened the door.

In a later dream, I was walking by a house where I saw someone working their front yard. They'd taken the front door off its hinges and laid it across two saw horses. Looking up from their work, they said, "go on in, take a look around." So, I did.

In one of my last 'door dreams' before the actual move, I had walked up a street I'd known in during my childhood. I noticed a house that had never actually been on that street. Wondering in my dream about where this house had come from, I started up the driveway and as if triggered by my presence, the garage door opened. Instead of cars, bicycles and typical garage items, the door opened to the living spaces of the house (living room, dining room, kitchen...)

A door had closed and no amount of pounding would open it, but new doors were opening: doors where people were waiting for me and doors that opened to reveal a whole 'new life.' I couldn't have known who those people were or what that life would look like, but after two years at Lake Washington UMC in Kirkland, I'm grateful for all of the people who have made those dreams come true.

May each closed door in our life cause us to turn around and see a street-full of doorless, God-filled houses, and may we have the courage to cross the street.