when God closes a door | mixed metaphors and not moving

Last September, I almost moved my whole life across the country for a new job.

It's no secret around here that I'm a molasses-slow decision maker. It's a process. I pray a lot. Lists litter every surface. I talk to a handful of beloved friends. I go on long walks and write and write and write until I come out with some sort of conclusion. The whole cycle in itself is kind of painful and by the time I usually arrive at a solid answer, I'm exhausted.

It's not something I ever want to relive, let alone meditate on. Yet that was this week's text. All my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you. David's words, hitting so close to home.

I've thought all week about what I could write about instead of my personal life, and it all seemed a little fake. I had to laugh because I committed to a blogging project about telling the truth, and all I wanted to do was hide mine. Yet here it is.

--

When I finally decided to move, I let myself get excited. I started to pack and plan and prepare. Two weeks before I was supposed to go, a thread snagged my plans. The pipes burst in the home I was supposed to live in. The funding for my new job got cut, and details slid out of focus, and suddenly everything unravelled. I asked God to give me a peace about moving, if that's what I was still supposed to do.

The next day, I woke up more sick than I've ever been. My joints were swollen and stiff. I radiated with nausea. Even my lips were swollen. I was so so sick. It was Psalm 38 in real life. Fast forward a few weeks, and I decided not to move. I'm still here, exactly where I was one year ago, and the year before that. And the year before that.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
By James.

Someone said to me, when God closes a door, He opens a window. I went home and thought about the phrase a lot. I think people say things like that when a situation seems too big, and they don't know what else to say. I think there's grace for that. But sometimes metaphors are too small. They package up a messy situation while sometimes overlooking that pain can reveal big things, if we are brave enough to face the mess.

As I took in Psalm 38 this week, I kept thinking about laying down my metaphors and digging for the raw truth. You see: I would never choose to write about not moving, a chapter from my life that I still don't fully understand and that felt a lot like failure.

And yet, here is what I've dug up: if there's anything to be said about that season, it isn't that God shut a door.

What sticks with me, deep down in my gut, is the truth that He was with me all along. Even when things didn't work out. Even when I didn't "seem" successful. When the dust settled from all that almost-change: He was with me at the beginning and at the end. And you know, He is with me still, and I am thankful.

This Lent, the presence of God seems so precious to me. Of such great value. And if it took moving and not moving, if it takes one hundred unexpected twists in my story to draw me nearer to Him, then so be it. Then bring them. Be not far from me...O Lord, my salvation. Selah.

the unwritten letters.

Dear friend,

I spent the last half hour writing a really cool post about trusting God and knowing that He's faithful.

As I reread it for typos, my eyes filled.  With one swipe of the backspace, I deleted it.  It sounded so fake...like I was pulling words from a factory line.

Who was this woman who had everything together?
Who was this person that sounded so trusting?
 I, for one, would like to meet her.

Because it's not me.

But nobody wants to write that kind of letter, do they?

Nobody wants to say that things have been hard lately, or they don't know what to do.  I want to say, I'm fine.  God is good.  Everything will be okay.
With love, Elizabeth.  The End.

But the heart of my writing has always been honesty, and the day I stop using my words for the side of truth...I don't think I want to write anymore.  So I trade my eloquent words for the ones tucked away in my throat.

Dear friend, I don't have everything together.  And I write that because maybe you've felt this way before, too.

It feels as though instead of things coming together, they are falling apart.  The specific what's, how's, and why's are really not important- but my heart is tired.  And God feels far away.

A dear friend recently told me that sometimes God intentionally draws away from us to see how much we're willing to look for Him.  In this season of my life, I believe it.

So I get up in the morning and breathe.  I will look and seek and pray.  I pull out my Bible and remind myself of beautiful stories that have started out as shambles- stories like Job, Jonah, and David.

With shaky breath, I find myself in these words.  In these people who are honest with God, even when it hurts.  And you know what?  God never seems to mind.

It's okay to weep.
It's okay to shout.
It's okay to hurt.

God never seems to turn away the brokenhearted.  He doesn't seem to mind if we beat on his chest.  He never rebukes people who come to him with hard questions.  In fact, he seems to show up more in the painful questions than anywhere else.

I think he'd rather us come to him in pain than shrink away from him in silence.

And my heart takes comfort in that.

Even if it doesn't feel like he's near me, I am a child of God.
And I will wait for Him.  I will fight this.  I will be honest.
I will wrestle, knowing that walking with a limp is far better than running away.

This passage was written to Job, a man whose life was falling apart before his own eyes.  His wife and children left him, he was stripped of his land and possessions, and he became ill basically to the point of death.

More than that, I think it's a letter to anyone who has ever come to God with questions.  Dear treasured, wrestling friend- you are not the only one.  He hears us.  I really, truly believe he does.

With love,
Elizabeth

³Behold, you [Job] have instructed many,
   and you have strengthened the weak hands.
⁴Your words have upheld him who was stumbling,
   and you have made firm the feeble knees.
⁵But now it has come to you, and you are impatient;
   it touches you, and you are dismayed.
⁶ Is not your fear of God^[a] your confidence,
   and the integrity of your ways your hope?

 ⁸"As for me, I would seek God,
   and to God would I commit my cause,
⁹who does great things and unsearchable,
    marvelous things without number:
¹⁰he gives rain on the earth
   and sends waters on the fields;
¹¹he sets on high those who are lowly,
   and those who mourn are lifted to safety.
¹⁷"Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves;
   therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty.
¹⁸For he wounds, but he binds up;
   he shatters, but his hands heal.

-Job 4: 3-6, 5: 8-11, 17 & 18