Closed Doors Don’t Always Lead to Open Doors
Perhaps you have heard it said that when one door closes, another will open. It is a hopeful way to view the world, a way to make sense of disappointments and dead ends. I’m all for having a positive out look on life, but I’m also all for having a realistic perspective as well.
As a result of my desire to look at all things honestly, I have to call into question this proverb of hopeful explanation used when things that don’t go well in our lives. I tend to agree with the character in Alice Hoffman’s novel, Blue Diary, who explains the closed doors of our lives this way.
There are some people who insist that every time one door closes, another door opens, but this isn’t always the case. There are doors that are meant to stay closed, ones that lead to rooms filled with serpents, rooms of regret, rooms that will blind you if you dare to raise your eye to the keyhole in all innocence, simply to see what’s inside. (p. 16)
I have experienced this in my life. Currently, I have someone close to me who seems to be experiencing multiple closed doors, rooms with serpents, and rooms of regret. For him to hear someone say, “Another door will open,” is maddening. “Of course another door will open,” he thinks. “But that door will simply have more let downs, more problems, and more failures.” His experience has shown that not all doors are equal and many of them are dangerously deceptive in their promises. Even those doors that appear to be possibilities often turn out to lead into serpent infested darkness.
As a result, he has a deep desire is to live in the narrow closed-in hallway where all the doors stay shut, to live in a cocoon of safety where darkness is better than the serpents on the other side of the doors. The safety of inaction appears to be better than the risk of action.
Perhaps what he, and every other person experiencing closed doors, needs is not a light-hearted pat on the back with a cheery “things will get better.” Perhaps what he needs is someone to stand beside him when the next door opens, someone to peer into the blinding rooms for him, someone to walk into the rooms of serpents and help him slay them. Encouraging words are important, but when they are trite they become falsehoods that wreak of insincerity. What we all really need once in a while is the encouraging presence of friends who are brave enough to stand with us against the serpents, regrets, blinding light, and uncertainty of what is ahead.
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