The Wrong Door

The Wrong Door

Our room has two doors. Imagine adjoining hotel rooms. There is a door between the rooms but each room still has it's own entrance into the hallway.

Yesterday as we were coming back to the room Cara ran on ahead of us. We looked down the hallway to see her fighting with the door. She had they key, but she was fighting with the wrong door. I looked at Bill and I said "There has to be a spiritual metaphor in this somewhere."

How often do we put all of our effort into opening the wrong door? We can fight with all our might and make no progress. How often has God given us the key to what we want but we waste it on the wrong door? Nothing Cara could have done on her own would have opened that door for her. She ran on ahead, determined that she could do it on her own and ended up frustrated and embarrassed.

The right door was just 3 inches away. We opened it effortlessly with the key she already had in her possession. If she had waited for us...if she had listened when Bill yelled the correct room number to her...if she had stopped fighting so hard and stepped back to look...she would have saved herself unnecessary struggle.

We do it all the time. We think we know what's best or what the plan should be and we exhaust ourselves trying to make it happen on our own. If we would stop, listen and follow the one who knows the way we could save ourselves a lot of heartache and exhaustion.

I am asking God to remind me of this as we enter back into the adoption process after holiday. We have a clear goal of when we would like to be home, but rather than fight for what I want I am asking for the patience to follow where He leads and not run on ahead with the key thinking I know the way. This will become increasingly more difficult as the days pass and our intended flight gets closer. I don't want to be here alone, but I will walk that path if he wants me to. It reminds me of an old Ginny Owens song that carried me through a lot of difficult times in college.

"Cause I'm not who I was when I took my first step

And I'm clinging to the promise You’re not through with me yet.
So if all of these trials that bring me closer to You
Then I will go through the fire if you want me to.

And it may not be the way I would've chosen
When you lead me through a world that's not my home
But you never said it would be easy
You only said I'd never go alone."