Closing Doors

My mother used to say, "When one door closes, God opens a window." I know she wasn't the first to utter those words. But in my mind, it's always her voice saying it. It's an incredible message of hope ~ and it often keeps me going when I feel immersed in darkness.

Paulo Coelho's quote brings a new clarity to this phrase as well as to the concept of closing doors. Sometimes the closing of a door has a positive purpose. Sometimes the doors we are accustomed to traversing no longer serve us. Sometimes those doors keep us fixed in places where we are comfortable, but no longer growing.

All my life I've been pretty much of a loner. Because of that, I've learned a great deal about closing doors, closed doors and swinging doors. In high school I often felt like a hex nut in a hammer and nail world. I took choir because we had to take a performance art class, yet I did not like performing. Closed that door after that year. Whew! Then in college, I was approached by a graduating senior and asked to try out for the gospel choir. Huh? Me? But on a whim, because she asked, I did it. At the very open, very packed tryouts, I won a place not only in the 200+ voice performing choir, but also in the 50 voice traveling choir. That door I thought closed? It turned out to be open again. Sometimes that can happen as well. Though I still consider myself a non-performer, that year with the gospel choir led me into a new world for a time. When the performance door closed at the end of that year, I knew it was time to let it go and move on.

Closing doors are not always locked. Sometimes doors need our help to close, to let go, to move on. We can take what we've learned and apply the lessons elsewhere. Though not easy, it can be refreshing simply to acknowledge that the door is closed.

When have you had a door close? When have you been the one to close the door? Can you see that where it led no longer served you? Are you still trying to pry it open? What open window or door might you be missing?