Locked Doors

I waited a few days to post my annual New Year’s blog (which I know you all have been waiting for with bated breath) because I wanted to live in 2019 for a few hours before I dumped my brain out here. Sometimes you need a little distance from something to be able to see it better. That whole hindsight thing, you know?

I’m about to sound really basic and say how much I love home renovation shows, but then again, I got a pair of Uggs for Christmas and I drink iced mochas, so who am I kidding? I’m a little basic. But man, I love a home show. All of it. I love them for the same reasons you love them. Taking something old and ugly and making it pretty and full of shiplap and antique rugs. Busting out all those walls and opening the place up to all that light.

I like them too because I dream of someday having a home like that of my own. Something new and fresh to be domestic in. With grass in the backyard and a big old kitchen island to make cakes and other yummies for my people. I dream about it a good bit on the daily, I just haven’t gotten the confirmation as to exactly what city that house should be in yet. TBD.

So this morning as I was writing out my prayers, I wrote these words:

I open the doors of my life to you to come in and do as you wish. No doors are locked. Clean them out. Sweep them up. Turn the lights on. Rearrange the furniture. Remove the doors for all I care. Open floor plan. All yours. Do as you will.

And I got to thinking, as I do, how long had the doors been locked? Why did I lock them? And who am I keeping out?

I think sometimes life causes us to begin to create rooms in our heart where we stash things. Then those rooms get really full and ugly so we put up a door. Then when we realize that we don’t want to go in there anymore we lock them up tight and put the key on a key ring with 100 other keys so we can’t find the one to unlock it. Because if we unlock it, no telling what we will find, and we FOR SURE can’t let the Lord up in those rooms. No way. No how.

But what happens is, those rooms begin to multiply and we allow our very best parts of ourselves to get locked up in rooms as well. Because if we lock it all up, we can’t get hurt. No one can hurt me if I don’t allow them in there. Or so we think. But the more rooms we lock up, the less space we have to dwell and thrive.

But I think maybe, and I can’t speak for anyone else and certainly never will, that perhaps I’m hurting myself more by locking it all up. Not only am I not allowing the Lord to do his work in my life, I am not being honest with myself about things I need to be honest about, and I am also keeping people out. People I need. People I didn’t know I needed.

Honest moment here - at the end of 2018 I had decided to not let any more people in my life. I could not, under any circumstances, take any more rejection from another human soul. No more tears. None. No new friends. Certainly no more dudes. Nope. And then, just has I did, people started knocking. And had I decided to keep that door locked as I had planned, I would have missed out on some of the best and most fun weeks of 2018. Some of the best people.

See what I mean? It’s easy to lock the door and throw away the key. My natural instinct is to do just that. Build my walls up and stay nice and safe in here all alone. But I don’t want to miss out on what the Lord has for me. And I don’t want to miss out on people who I might actually really need and who might actually really need ME! We were not meant to be alone. Did you hear that? We were not meant to be alone!

This will be the hardest thing I do in 2019. To slowly find the keys that unlock those doors and open them all. I have a feeling there is some funk growing in some of those rooms after all this time. Ew. Once they are open I’ll have to hand that key ring to Jesus and know I’ll never get it back. To trust that He knows better than I know (why is that so haaaaard?). That my feelings are not always true and to lean real hard into Him.

The picture below is a picture in my sister’s guest house at her home. It’s a place I have spent many nights. I love the sign because it has my last name on it, but I also love it because it’s really true. Come in and enjoy your visit, but don’t you dare lock the door and stay. There is more for you out there. More freedom and love and laughter on the outside than locked up in a little room all by yourself.

I’m choosing to try to do this all at once. All the doors open. But maybe one door at a time is better for you. There is no right or wrong way of allowing the Lord to come back to the places that belong to Him. Let him clean it all up. Work it all out. Show you things you had forgotten. Introduce you to people you need. Hand Him the keys and trust Him. I promise it will be worth it.

Welcome home, darlings. Welcome home.