Five Minute Friday: Door

Note: This post is my weekly contribution to the Five Minute Friday community that is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog Heading Home. Click here for more information about Five Minute Friday and how you can get involved! To link up with all the other entries for today's prompt word, click here.

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I shut the door to the bookstore bathroom and cowered in one of the stalls. Tears were streaming down my face and anger was coursing through my blood. Confused and heartbroken, I stood there for a good fifteen minutes bawling and trying to make sense of the fact that my boyfriend had just broken up with me. After some time (and blowing my nose), I exited the stall and went to wash my hands and face at the sink. I still had some tears to cry but I'd moved through the immediate moment of crying. In this heightened state of emotion, I made a decision. I decided to shut another door. 

I shut the door to marriage.

You see, for several years I had been the recipient of wedding invitations, wedding shower invitations, baby shower invitations, baby announcements, and all of the myriad of things that go along with a life joined to another person as one flesh. I had watched so many friends and acquaintances and even heard about friends of friends who were marrying and having babies and getting on with this stage of life. I had been a spectator in all these moments of joy. My own heart's desire had always been to be a wife and mother, but in this moment of anger and pain, I made the decision that God wasn't going to honour that desire for some reason. I had loved my boyfriend and I thought he loved me. He'd even told me he loved me and that he couldn't imagine a life without me. And then just a couple of weeks after saying that, he changed his tune. He said he only loved me as a friend. I just didn't want male friends any more.  I wanted a husband. I was angry at God for teasing me this way and making me believe that this boyfriend was going to be "the one." 

So I shut the door. I told my mother a few weeks later that I was refusing to go to any more weddings until such a time as it was my own wedding. I didn't care who was getting married. God wasn't providing anyone for me, so I wasn't going to bear witness to the people he was providing for others. 

A year or so later, my friend Sorella invited me to this thing to introduce me to a guy she thought I'd like. I went, although because my door was firmly shut, I didn't have any hope that anything would come of it. I was right. He was nice, but not anyone I was interested in. Then he invited Sorella and me to something the next night at a local Catholic parish -- a young adults' Bible study and "adoration" group. I didn't know what adoration was, but like the idea of other folks my age studying the Bible, so we went. 

I wasn't planning on opening that door. I wasn't planning on meeting anyone. I met Gray that night. I wish I could say that meeting him made me open that door, but it didn't. In fact, something about Gray when we first met made me not even want to really get to know him at all. He seemed nice enough, but he was kind of weird and I just didn't know what to do with that. So I kept that door of my heart shut tight -- even to friendship with a man.

Oh, but friends, the Holy Spirit had other ideas! I don't remember exactly when it was, but I remember having the thought that I didn't even really want to get to know "that guy" (Gray) and almost as suddenly as the thought went through my head, I felt a nudge in my spirit. It was gentle, but firm. Just get to know him. Just be his friend. Not audible words, but a definite sense that the Holy Spirit was trying to direct me in that way. My reply was a grudging sigh and an, "Okay, Lord."

And just like that, the door of my heart was pushed open a crack. 

Gray and I became friends and that crack grew wider and wider until one day, I realised that the door had been pushed wide and love had come pouring in.

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