The Door

     Yesterday had been a good day.  Janie's doctors said she was making slow and steady progress.  We had sweet family and friends to encourage us.  I even enjoyed a beautiful walk outside in the warm sun and felt totally revived.  How much I take for granted, I thought, as I enjoyed the sun and the sky and the clouds and the feeling of moving and breathing deeply.  Thank You Jesus for this gift.  Help me to have a heart that is relentlessly thankful for all Your myriad blessings, both eternal and daily--family, friends, laughter, walking, sun, food, fellowship, music, rest, nurses, doctors, saving hospitals, school, teachers, Moses--our sweet old lab, children, hot showers, clean sheets, answered prayer--small and great, friends interceding in prayer, sisters and brothers, chocolate (always got to put that in there), faith, hope, love, stones, salvation, the Word.   Not even close to an exhaustive list to be sure... but just a few things I'm thanking Him for right now.
     But late last night, after such a good day (well, for the most part as each day provides challenges and ups and downs--for all of us), I hit the wall.  All this waiting and praying, waiting and praying, well, I'm learning what frail and impatient people we all are.  Most of the time, we remember the Lord has us.   He totally envelopes us and enables us to patiently wait and trust in Him, knowing we are in His hands and in His perfect timing.  Such a place of joy and peace, truly, where He just seems to carry you along in His grace.
     But then there are those times, when you just hit the wall.  The wall of worry.  The wall of despair.  The wall of why.  The wall where you've utterly come to the end of your strength and hope, and you just cannot imagine any way out.  "Lord," I cried out, "I believe. Help Thou my unbelief."  And after reading His Word and talking with my husband and sister last night, He came and calmed my troubled heart and gave me the best night's sleep I've had since Janie's accident.  Thank You Lord.  Another blessing.
     And He awoke me this morning with this thought: I Am the Door.
     When you hit the wall, the wall of worry, the wall of despair, the wall of helplessness, I am the Door.  I am the Door in that wall that will get you through to the other side.
     I opened my Bible and reread the familiar verses in John 10.  Only this time, they were inexpressibly beautiful to me.  "I am the Door.  If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.  The thief comes only to kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." (John 10:9-10)
     He is the Door to salvation, to eternal life.  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)   He is our Door to salvation, and we must each choose to enter that Door by asking Him to forgive our sins and to be our Lord and Savior.  Thank You Lord!
     But He is also the Door to eternal, abundant life now.  He is the Door to peace in the midst of crisis. He is the Door to joy in the midst of sorrow.  He is the Door to healing in the midst of sickness.  He is the Door to strength in the midst of hardship.  He is the Door to love in the midst of broken relationships.  He is the Door to forgiveness in the midst of sin.  He is the Door to victory in the midst of failure.  He is the Door to Life--with a capital "L"--in the midst of hard waiting when life can seem gray and uncertain.  He is the Door to revived hope in the midst of our toughest challenges.
     He is the Door.  He is my Door. He is Janie's Door.  He is your Door.  He is our Door in good times and bad.  He is our Door even when we hit the most impossible of walls, and He will see us through to the other side--  to that abundant, joyful Life.  He promised, and His promises never ever fail.
     Thank You Lord Jesus for being our Door to salvation.  What a gift.  What a Savior.
     But thank You also for being our Door in our walls of waiting, of worry, of whatever we face in our lives that seem to tell us there is no way out, no way across, no way through.  Because that is a lie from the enemy.  With You there is always always always The Way through, because You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life... and You are our Door.
     Our Lion of Judah is roaring.  He is our Door, and by faith, we will enter through Him and past our walls, into His abundant, eternal Life.  To God, our Door, our Way through always and forever, be all the glory.