Bear in mind this is sort of a rambling post. There’s been a lot going in my mind lately.

In my never-ending quest to trying to figure out what is going on in my life, I’ve realized that sometimes I feel like it’s a never-ending hallway full of doors. If you’ve read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, then you know of the scene that takes place in the Ministry of Magic with the doors. For the rest of you Muggles out there (that’d be non Wizarding folk), Harry and his friends find themselves in a room that’s full of doors and they don’t know which door to go through at first. All the doors are locked and they are trying to figure how to get in. And that’s how I’m feeling right now. I see all these doors, but I don’t know how to get in.

One of the things that I struggle with is knowing when a door has been really shut and when I’m just being stupid and ignoring the fact that it is. It all comes down to letting go of control, trusting in God and just waiting. I know all about that. I’ve written about (see evidence in those links). But sometimes it’s still hard. Because you don’t know what you should do. And even after prayer, reading the Bible, asking for advice, and surrendering, the answer still isn’t all that clear. And God seems silent.

There have been times when I know a door has been shut in my life. Relationships, jobs, school, things I wanted to happen. The door is shut so firmly and with a loud bang that it’s so completely obvious. And even though I didn’t understand at the time why the door was closed, I still KNEW it had been shut.

Looking back, one amusing “door slam shut” story involved a guy that I started to become aware of possibly being interested in. I didn’t fully like him but I was gathering the notion of what it would be to like him. I told a girlfriend the next day, and she was the first person who I had told, heck I had just barely admitted it to myself. I ended up hanging out with him and a few friends that night, and I’m starting to think “Hmm I can see this working”. An hour passes and we’re all talking, and one friends asks the guy “Oh, where did these [food items] come from?” He replies, “My girlfriend…..who I started dating yesterday.” I was floored. After I got my jaw off the ground, I had to laugh because I knew then that God had immediately slammed that door shut before I had even gotten the chance to get it open more than a tiny crack. Eventually it all worked out for the best as they are now engaged and I’m really happy for them. But it was just amusing because I KNEW God had done this and stopped it before it could even get started.

But then there are other times when I’ve tried to close a door and God will NOT let it close. I’ve begged, pleaded, cried, walked away with the intention of never trying to open it again, only to have it swing wide back open again. But when I walk back towards the door, I can’t walk through it or it starts to shut slowly again. And I don’t know why it’s happening. Because if I were to sit there and wait for that door on my own, I’m expecting a long and painful wait. I’ve prayed a lot about it. And right now I feel that God is telling me that it’s ok to walk away from that door now, but he’s still leaving it open. I’m not really looking back at the door and I feel like I’m not the one that’s meant to go through it first. I wish that the door would stay shut so that I could freely move on, but perhaps that’s not what God wants for me right now. Meanwhile there’s another door ahead of me that does seem open but I can’t get to it yet. That’s also slightly frustrating because that door feels like it finally opened and I want to go in there. I may be slightly impatient as I’m stuck in that big waiting room.

A friend once told me that if God wants to close a door in your life, no matter how hard you push and shove, it will not budge open. Likewise if he wants to keep it open, I will never be able to pull that door shut no matter how hard I try.

So basically the only thing I can do right now is just keep doing everything I have been. And pray that even though I don’t know why everything is happening the way things are going now, that in the future I’ll understand.