A Story of Doors

Several weeks ago I was at my church participating in a guided experience of listening prayer. The theme was “Thresholds.” A spiritual director, a woman named Kari, invited us to imagine ourselves exiting one door, and entering another. I saw the front door of my Green Lake house. Wide open. There were squirrels and eagles and everything green. And then, in prayer, I approached the “other” house. The house on Oakwood, just down the street from my son and his family. (The house we thought would be ours.) But it had no door. The door was missing. 

Later, I told my husband about the experience. He asked, “How do you know you’re not making this up?” Fair question. I said, “Well, I guess we’ll see how it plays out.” 

Fast forward.

It turns out, there was truth in the vision. A couple of weeks ago, the door to Oakwood closed. Hard. Totally unexpected. Gut punch, whiplash of every emotion. The house we’d thought would be ours—door closed. AND. The house we thought we’d sold—wasn’t. An agreement cancelled. A lake house back on the market. All of this within a couple of days. We found ourselves blindsided. Reeling. After all these months, thinking we knew where we were going… 

And now what??? 

We honestly don’t know. 

It’s exactly like our pastor has described it, multiple times, in a series of sermons during the season of Lent. Every week he has reminded us: 

We are wanderers in the middle of a story. God holds the book. (He wrote it.) We see a single page.

I remember another vision, two years ago now. (Has it really been that long?) 

A house down the street from grandkids. A little fist knocking on our door. 

BUT WHAT DOOR???

My head spins trying to figure it out.

I tell the Spirit… Talk to my husband. Kyle says, “We should stay the course.” 

The course of selling. The course of moving. But to where? 

WHERE?? 

Are you asking us to sell our house with absolutely no idea where we’re going?!

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. (Genesis 12:1) 

Abraham. Jospeh. Moses. Each person, called by God to leave home and to follow. Where? They hardly knew. And yet centuries later all of these stories would become a single picture of what it means to follow Jesus. 

Early last week I was alone in my house, praying out loud. Words of a wanderer in the midst of the story. 

Where? Why? How? 

He didn’t answer. Not really.

But then, we gathered with our lake friends, and we asked for prayer. These neighbors who love us. Who have walked each step of this journey with us, who feel genuine sadness when we talk of our plans to potentially move. Now they listen to the Spirit on our behalf. And to a person they agree with Kyle. They tell us to go. 

GO. 

God is still leading. 

I pray the prayer that never fails—

“God, I trust you.” 

There’s another door in this story, and in some ways it’s the glue holding the whole thing together. Church of the Open Door. Of all the Spirit whispers, this one seems the most certain. The most obviously Him. My husband agrees. God called us this far, and we need to stay the course. 

Within days of doors slamming, we see hints of new openings.

First, a tiny fixer upper for our California son and his growing family. Three blocks from his brother’s on Oakwood. Little fists knocking on Nana’s front door. They make an offer. It’s immediately accepted. A door opens, just like that. 

New doors for us maybe, too. Good options. Amazing even. More than we could ask or imagine. And yet we have a house to sell. We continue to wait. We continue to trust.

Spring arrives, mild one day, frigid the next. The landscape is barren from winter, but here and there, a sprout of green. Each evening Kyle and I tackle a project. We rake leaves. We mulch gardens. We split wood from a fallen tree. 

And we wonder. Who are we doing this for? Ourselves or somebody else? 

I saw the front door of my Green Lake house. Wide open. There were squirrels and eagles and everything green…