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We all have doors we want
to close, don’t we?
If we don’t slam them immediately, then at some time or another,
on down the road, we know we’ll eventually close certain doors. Right?
Wrong.
We are what we are. No influence that has touched us ever goes away. From
the cradle to the grave we are becoming. We are one with what touches
us.
Last week, I ran into a first cousin while I was down in Columbus. Just
walked right smack dab into her at Minnie’s (about the best eatery
in town for down home cooking at lunch time).
I had not seen Teresa for years. That happens when you have as many cousins
as I do and when you let time get away from you.
We reminisced over lunch. I told her about the upcoming T. Graham Brown
concert at The Gospel Barn in LaGrange and how I’d wanted to hear
him for more than 12 years and how certain I was that I finally was going
to be able to close some doors.
She laid down her fork, looked at me, straight into my eyes, and said,
“I don’t think we ever get to do that.”
I could hardly swallow after her comment.
There was a pause in our conversation while the four of us absorbed the
weight of her words. We both had a friend with us, friends who were somewhat
lost, I suppose, as Teresa and I talked about our past and the pain that
never goes away.
One of eight children, she has lost three siblings. She was once in a
bad automobile accident in which her sister died while Teresa lived. Another
sister died from cancer. A year later that sister’s son died in an
auto accident. And, before all that, a brother had died in an accident.
The year her mom died (the same year my dad died) Teresa had decided that
God surely would heal Joy (the sister with cancer); so certain she was
that He would not take her sister and her mother during the same year.
Wrong.
We can be assured of very little when it comes to knowing what God will
and will not do. But that very little makes all the difference.
What is that assurance?
We can be certain that God loves us. No matter what. He is not threatened
by our anger or intimidated by our questions. He accepts us as we are
and loves us unconditionally.
Then it becomes a relationship thing. A matter of coming to the end of
ourselves. The end of going it alone, of doing it by ourselves. And a
realization that we get back what we put into it.
It’s not what, why, when, or even how, that really matters in life.
It’s who. Who are we sharing it all with? Who do we talk to every
day? Who supports us and loves us and is always there for us?
You may think you have no one. You may be able to name a dozen or more
folks. But, there again, it’s who you are naming that counts.
The most romantic weddings end in divorce more often than we want to admit.
Friends move away. Parents pass on. Siblings die. Loved ones can be gone
in an instant. There is only one constant. And that is God’s unconditional
love for us. His desire to walk with us, talk with us, let us lean on
Him, let Him care for us.
But it’s our choice.
Always, it’s our choice. He made us in His image. He understands.
He’s proud of what we do and the wisdom we show when we choose not
to do certain things. He doesn’t want to take away our right to make
choices, or enjoy and experience life in a thousand ways.
Not at all. He just wants to share it with us.
Think about it.
Why did God need man? Whatever you perceive God to be, surely you must
recognize Him as the creator. And if we are created in His image, as I
believe we are, then we share with Him a desire for relationships.
Think I’m way off on this one? Think again. Could it be that God
wants our love and companionship just as much as we need His?
I didn’t get to close the doors I wanted to close, but I realized
something at the T. Graham Brown concert. I realized there’s never
been a door though which God did not walk with me. And I know now that
that’s enough. More than enough.
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