“How much can God do through closed doors?”
The question hung in the air in a recent Teams meeting, and it took my breath away. I was talking with others at BCM International, the global missions organization where I work, about how to tell the story of the organization’s founder Bessie Traber. God called her to be an overseas missionary. She obeyed His call and went. Just one year later, her health necessitated she return home to the U.S. No doubt, she struggled. God opened a door to HIS ministry, and He swiftly closed it. What do you do when God takes something so monumental away?
A child revealed truth to Bessie in a conversation. She was recalling the Bible clubs she hosted for children overseas – I imagine, with great longing and fondness in remembering – when a young person right here in the Keystone State asked something like – “Can you do that here, for us kids in Philadelphia?”
So, she started the Bible Club Movement. I’m not sure she intended her work to be a global movement. But she followed God in next steps she didn’t foresee. Her work grew from Philadelphia through PA, the U.S. and around the globe. The organization became BCM International. Thousands of children in 55 countries are now reached through volunteers and missionaries each year. Children’s ministry leaders are trained to know the Bible and effectively teach the most important lessons a person could hear – all through BCM.
That’s what God can do through closed doors.
I doubt Bessie would have imagined this as she stared at the door that was solidly closed in her face. This sight of the back of a solid door latched firmly and permanently came at a time when she was passionate about reaching children for Christ and confident she was following Him. In fact, I imagine she mourned over the opportunity lost to health challenges, that she cried sad and angry tears over the gifts and plans that were taken away, that she questioned why the ministry she loved was suddenly stopped.
The question in that meeting hit hard for me, because of my own closed-door experience.
A Heavy Closed Door
A significant door was closed for many people just over one year ago.
It’s one year after a watershed moment, one will always mark the “before and after” seasons of my life. One year after Clarks Summit University announced closure.
The door was closed for an amazing team of co-laborers – described as such because I observed their work as such a dedicated labor of love – for Christ and for the students. A door closed for students in a community of support and Christ-centered encouragement, some so close to earning their degrees.
I imagine Bessie’s feelings, because I don’t have to imagine mine.
For weeks (months?), tears had a permanent residence right behind my eyes, ready to fall at a moment’s notice – easily conjured by memories, missing moments, and moves – as so many families and friends left for new places.
Life looks different now.
I sleep more than six hours a night.
I have time to think without constant calls and texts and messages.
We’ve downsized from a three-story, 31-bed, 12-bath “mansion” on the mountain to a three-bed, one-bath ranch in the valley.
Instead of opening an apartment door to dozens of college girls right outside, our house door opens to the outside world, to a neighborhood we’re still getting to know.
I work from the living room and collaborate with a team via computer screen instead of walking to work to collaborate with a team down a shared hallway.
I teach online for LBC instead of in person at CSU.
I share stories about what God is doing globally through BCM International instead of sharing stories about what God is doing in the lives of students at a Bible university.
Instead of planning residence hall events and mentoring a leadership team, I get to feel “old” against the contrast of people in the young adult ministry we’re starting at church.
The community and ministry of a year ago were significant, which is why the closed door feels so heavy.
And the closed door was God’s will.
Unexpected God’s Will
I think back on times in my life when I was desperate to know God’s will. You know those times of decision and uncertainty, not knowing what steps to take? Times I pleaded to know God’s will with an earnest desire to walk in it, but uncertainty about what was next.
Don’t we beg to know God’s will? And not just know it but to live in it?
And this last year has undoubtedly been God’s will. Yet, it was hard.
I know it is God’s will because it was not my will. It’s nothing I could have or would have conjured up.
I know because it clearly was not man’s plan.
I also know because He did not let me fall – even when I wanted to.
Better than Freezer Food
I remember one specific moment I was home alone looking at what to make for the next week’s dinner. I went down to the freezer and found nothing meal-worthy – frozen chicken bones waiting to become broth, a container of soup that had been frozen much longer than it should have been, homemade apple cider, some sausage, and a bunch of ice packs. I trudged up the stairs holding the apple cider and fought back angry tears. Dejected tears. Tears that remembered everything we lost – everything I didn’t have. I was really thinking of so much more that had been taken besides just the frozen food. I was angry to see the wide gap between all I had before and the little I thought I had at that moment.
Before the tears burst, I got a phone call from a former professor and former CSU colleague. The closure led to their moving across the country, and their moving day was this week. They had canned goods and frozen foods they weren’t taking with them. Would we want them? She didn’t want to offer the free food as an insult and didn’t want to offend. (What offense?)
She recounted a time when she was a young mom, and their family didn’t have much. Her husband returned unexpectedly one day with a car packed full of food God provided, and she was still praising God for it decades later.
This time, God used her to provide. Her husband would drop off the food soon, she said, as she ended the call. And my knees hit the floor, and tears finally came. But the tears of anger and loss were washed away by the tears of thankfulness and awe. God had not only provided, but He did it in a way that showed me it was uniquely from Him. His spirit prompted her to call in the exact moments I dove into the loss and wanted to crumble under it. Her gift met the exact need, making full the precise items I counted as lost. And her call met the real, yet unknown, need, sharing the story of His faithfulness that reminded me of the hope I didn’t even really want to see.
Forget “former” professor. She is perpetually my teacher.
God used his people to provide often. Family cooked dinners and cash left behind on visits. A friend purchased some furniture from us, and after she drove away, the envelope contained a payment that was multiple times what was owed in the agreed-upon price. Unexpected checks came in the mail or after visits or mid-handshakes. Kids received extra financial aid to continue at a Christ-centered school.
For a career dress-up day, God even gave a $3 police officer costume in the perfect size to fit my first-grader, after I already told him we’d have to be creative and make homemade accessories with what we had on hand at home instead.
Because it was His will, God showed up in it.
It was indescribably hard; yet, He gave us glimpse after glimpse after full-blown gazes of His presence and provision.
Immediately after the door was shut, we experienced what was like spending time with family after losing a loved one. After the crowd of the funeral leaves, you stand with those who bear the same levels of loss. Who share common memories along with common grief and fears and questions. True empathy and a strong common bond of community, family. That time with those people was a most precious gift.
We thought we had 30 days. 30 days to find a new home. To move out. To start over. We sold stuff and started packing, looked at apartments, asked every connection, brainstormed solutions. Plans changed, and we were given more time, and again, and again. We stayed a full year from the furlough date, the second-to-last family to leave campus. While that brought unique emotional challenges – seeing reality of closure firsthand – it was a gift to have a space and unique opportunities to process it all.
We’ve been in our new home just a few weeks. So while the door has been closed a full year, some parts of the closure’s effects are hitting differently just now.
God clearly provided and showed He was in our next steps with so many details. The big things – a home that meets our needs; a job that allows me to do what I love for an organization that is still Christ-centered; work for my husband that started so soon after the door closing; peace for my kids as their lives were changed.
Illusive Excitement
A week before we moved from our campus home, my husband asked if I was excited. Others would ask the same.
Grateful to have a place?
Yes.
Knowing it was needed and that God provided?
Yes.
Happy God gave some perks that we didn’t even NEED but wanted – close to a park, lilies in the yard, tulips blooming.
Yes.
Excited?
No.
Celebrating? Ok – alongside grieving at times.
Even when I write that, I feel convicted. So many people have been praying for this for us over the last year. Next steps. Direction. Answers. Open doors.
It’s still taking my heart a while to catch up to what I know is true. These next steps are a gift from God. A gift just as beautiful as the gifts He gave in the past. From a God who is just as kind and good and powerful as He was when He first opened doors to the ministries now past. And I have to remember, it wasn’t my idea or in my plan to be part of the CSU ministry in the first place – in another season, God was the One who led us there.
There’s a song that still pricks me with a line that says, “I’m thankful for the scars.”
I’ll be honest and say it: I’m not.
It goes on to say, “Without them I wouldn’t know your heart.”
I still like to think I could have known God’s heart without the scars, without the hard.
But my wisdom is foolishness next to God’s. I’m praying nothing is wasted, that He heals every heart, and that every scar is a beautiful testimony to His grace.
So many times over the past year, I felt like a spoiled child, pouting because someone took my things away and refusing to be grateful for the new gift someone gave me. I’d explain that to Him over and over, confessing I didn’t want to be the ungrateful kid, yet still feeling that way. He has been patient with me.
His Scars and Mine
The song goes on to lyrics that eventually resonate with me:
“‘Cause my brokenness brought me to you
And these wounds are a story you’ll use.
…
And I know they’ll always tell of who you are.”
That’s my prayer. And that’s why I’m writing. Even in the hard – maybe THROUGH the hard – can all of this that I didn’t want be part of the story He uses to tell others who He is?
I listened to the song again recently as I was thinking of this, and it hit me.
A word is changed in this verse, in bold below:
“I can see, I can see
How you delivered me
In your hands, in your feet
I found my victory
I’m thankful for your scars
‘Cause without them I wouldn’t know your heart
And with my life, I’ll tell of who you are
So forever I am thankful.”
I’m not the only one with significant scars. Jesus bore the most significant scars in history. He didn’t just have his earthly home and ministry changed; He gave up his life. He held sin itself in His body, so that He could defeat it for mankind. For me.
When the door closed, I was helpless. I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t open the door back up. I couldn’t arrange my next steps – for finances, for jobs, for healing, for ministry. I was completely dependent on God for every, single thing. The season showed me my dependence and removed many things from that good season that weren’t big enough to hold the weight of true hope.
The song reminds me I was once in a state far worse. I was helpless. Because as a human, like all of us, my sin deserved consequences. My sin separated me from being able to be with God. I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t change the outcome. The only solution was Jesus’ scars. He made the payment I owed for my sin when He died on that cross – accepting the ultimate scars. Those scars gave me hope and a future. I had to realize how helpless and dependent I was and have faith that Jesus’ scars were my only way out. When I asked for His forgiveness, He forgave and changed the entire course of my life and eternity. His forgiveness and life-change are available to everyone who comes to Him in helpless dependence. All because He willingly took on the scars.
So, after all He has done, how can I be indebted to His scars and resentful of my own? If the monumental scars He was willing to take on changed my life, then can’t I accept minor scars of my own? He’s included them as part of my story that He can use to show who He is.
I want to follow Him, be like Him, look like Him. When I think about the reality of this, scars are part of His reflection. Because they prove His love.
Thankful for my scars? Still not really the description I would choose.
But the scars are here, and I want them to motivate me to reflect His goodness He proved through scars of His own – those much deeper than I can imagine.
Sunset Perspectives
I still wrestle.
But until I figure it out better, I know this. He gave – and gives – daily bread. Even when I wanted a freezer-full of meals. The “bread” was found in needs met on so many levels – people, encouragement, truth, provision.
This isn’t what I ordered. It’s what I needed though. Even though I don’t understand it, God knows infinitely more, and He provides what we need – from life-saving forgiveness to phone calls and freezers full of encouragement.
And now next steps.
What comes after closed doors?
I don’t completely know, but I don’t want to miss it. A situation recently convicted me of doing just that.
Driving home, I looked up and saw a stunning sunset peeking through the ridge where two mountains meet – one of those mountains used to be our home. My mind went right to how beautiful the sunsets were when we lived on the mountain – seeing the reds and golds and purples stretch across the sky. And it hit me. I was so wrapped up in recalling the past mountainside sunsets that I was not celebrating the beauty of the sunset right in front of me, viewed from the valley.
The sun was the same. The bold summer sunset colors were equally as stunning. The magnificent Creator had not changed. Yet my vantage point was different. My perspective was what changed. And I was choosing it. I don’t want my misplaced perspective to make me miss the beautiful sunsets.
Pressing Forward
This clear sunset realization came soon after a conversation I had with my husband. “Doesn’t it feel like our CSU experience was almost in between parentheses?” I asked him. I chose the question because we lived in a small valley town prior to CSU, and we moved back to that same town after coming off the mountain.
He knew what I meant better than I even did, and he answered clearly: “No. Don’t believe the lie that you’re going backwards.”
He hit my exact fears, even if I didn’t recognize them before. Here we are again many years later, but back in the same town, back in a “normal” life. In my mind, things were taken away. We were going backwards – not forward.
Maybe that perspective is what has been making it so hard for my emotions to catch up with my mind.
I don’t want to miss what is in front of me at this moment because I’m stuck remembering the beautiful sunsets of yesterday. I don’t want to miss being grateful for the blessings coming down right now because I’m mourning the blessings that were given in a different season.
He gave us each gift. My husband reminded me to re-focus. “Think of all you learned and all the ways He prepared you in that season. Now take that and use it in the next season – live forward.”
His words echoed the familiar words Paul stated in Philippians 3.
“…forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” NASB
Sometimes it’s assumed that “what lies behind” is all the darkness of days prior to knowing Christ, but Paul doesn’t distinguish between “good” and “bad” past experiences here. And it’s simply hard to want to forget what lies behind when what was left behind was good.
Some study guides say “forgetting” has a hint of neglecting or overlooking. Paul glances over the past in order to put his focus on the real goal: the upward – not backward facing – call of God.
Often in the dorm, I’d sit on the floor in the living room with one of the girls who was going through something hard. I’d be able to point to the Scripture hanging on the wall to remind them of the core truth that God’s mercies are new every morning – His faithfulness is great (Lamentations 3:21-23). And those verses start with the writer choosing to call that core truth to mind. Sometimes remembering truth doesn’t come naturally – we have to call it to mind.
And that great faithfulness? It is real. Even the morning after – and the year after – closed doors.
I don’t have the answers. I don’t always see the polished, pretty stories of how God has beautifully redeemed the closed doors. Sometimes I do see glimpses – through my story and many others.
And through daylilies that still bloom outside our new home.
He never promises the whole picture or perfection here on earth all neatly tied up in a bow.
He promises forgiveness. Redemption. Grace. Mercy. His presence and care. His love in every good gift He continually gives in every season. Eternal life with Him.
How Much can God do Through Closed Doors?
So when I hear that question in the online meeting – “How much can God do through closed doors?” – I have to catch my breath.
I have no idea.
And I’m learning – that’s the beauty of it.
“For this reason I bend my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner self, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
Ephesians 3:14-21 NASB