Accepting The Door I’ve Been Given

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It’s confession time!

This year at Access, we kicked off 2015 with a series entitled “Dream Year.” It was so inspiring that I could hardly sit in my seat for the whole service, too ready to burst through the doors and into my destiny. I watched as countless people around me fulfilled lifelong dreams and I would cry happy tears with them and celebrate yet another person finding their dream and conquering it.

Here’s where the confession comes in, though: As sincere as my happiness for others was, there was also an insistent struggle with feelings of insufficiency and self-loathing at my seeming complete inability to accomplish anything of “worth.” Let me take it even a little further here honesty-wise: I’m pretty sure I spent the largest part of this year fixated on dreams that I was depressed hadn’t occurred, and assuming my life was worthless because I had yet to accomplish them.

Here’s the kicker: I threw pity parties about my lack of accomplishment and worth as I sat at the head of a PTA board meeting that I was leading. I would self-loathe and inwardly whine about my missed opportunities as I watched my kids play. I would look at other people’s Facebook pages and see how they were doing the things I assumed I should be doing, and let an unfinished piece of writing sit open idly in Word while I did so.

Ouch.

Do you get it? Cause I sure didn’t. I was literally banging on closed doors while strong winds from the doors that actually were open for me hit me in the extremely daft head. What a waste of time!

But I think I’m starting to get it. Right now, my open doors are heading up the PTA of my sons’ school and raising my babies. My open door is writing this blog for my fellow daft-headed friends and hoping they can learn from my example. My open door may not look like I thought it would (or, let’s be honest, like I thought it should), but it’s the door that’s open for me and there is so much peace, joy, and unexpected blessing that comes from embracing that and walking in the destiny that is mine for today.

This quote from the brilliant C. S. Lewis basically sums up what I’ve been feeling better than I ever could:

“It seems to me that we often, almost sulkily, reject the good that God offers us because, at that moment, we expected some other good.”

Let’s not let this go on any longer. I’m starting today with repentance for my inability to change my forceful insistence and asking for new eyes to see all the already-open doors around me. I can’t wait to see what each and every one of them holds! Oh, and when I finally accepted that I needed to accept the doors that were open to me, something really cool happened. Just yesterday I finished the first draft of a book I’ve been working on for months. That door is blown open and I am excited to not only accept it, but to embrace it and watch it open other doors, as well.

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