The Gift of Doors Open

I sang this today.. with pollen on the throat.. The Impossible Dream... Dream... anticipate those doors opening...

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of Doors Open

“Life gets very quiet before all the doors open.  I’m learning that what can feel like loneliness is actually grace.  Rest.  Find your strength.  It will all change soon.” 

J. Lynn

When doors open you are given a new pathway. 

A new vision. 

A new mindset. 

Even a new way to pray.  

Let the door open, even when you are unsure. 

The quiet, the loneliness pave a new way of grace. 

Enjoy the quiet time. 

Enjoy the rest.  

Store up your energy for what is coming next. 

Shore up your mind. 

Just listen and wait. 

Embrace the quiet. 

Embrace the change. 

Count your blessings each and every day. 

 

As I write this, it is still a quiet day around the house.  The kids are off doing military training, etc… 

It is a particularly quiet day at our house.  The trees are up for the holidays but in the words of the old story, “not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”  This is a time of change for a couple of empty nesters.  It is a blessing yet also a time of sadness.  We are waiting for the pitter patter of grandchildren running around the house.  For now we are happy when a college child stops in for a few days.  In fact, the college kids will be here in a few days.  The house will be full of energy, full of feral eaters and full of voices here, there and everywhere.  This gives us a sense of joy and sadness because the house will be quiet again after the holidays.  After reading the quote above this really gave great pause. There is so much in life that we take for granted.  We get easily annoyed.  We reminisce about days of old.  Rather than embrace the quiet and the journey to a new and interesting path.  We are in that period of waiting for kids to finish college and find their significant others and eventually we will have a quiver full of grandchildren invading our house.  Have we become so busy that we cannot handle the down time?  The quiet time?  The time when nothing major is going on?  I confess, I have been guilty of this a lot recently.  I shared in a previous writing that I have been a mom from a very young age.  In the times when teens were going out with friends, marching in the band, going on trips and doing all the various and sundry things that teens do.  I was a mom of a little one and attending school. I was whining to my older brother recently that I need to be busy, to keep myself busy so that life could seem as if it was still at the pace that we had when the house was full of kids.  He looked at me and said, “Enjoy the silence, think of this time as a gift that you were not given when you were a young mother.  Life will get busy again.  So just enjoy this time while you can.”.  Even when a gift is squarely in my life it took someone else to point out just what a wonderful gift was right in plain sight. My brother’s sage words hit home very keenly.  Take the down time, learn something new.  Learn a new song.  Write that story that you have always wanted to write. Spend time outside just enjoying the breeze.  Enjoy the peace until the next spring comes.  Think about Olympians, they train vigorously for years with much discipline to make their sport, their craft the absolute best reflection of their country.  They sprint, they run and they sacrifice a lot to make it to the Olympic Games.  Once that sprint is over what do they do?  They rest.  They support other athletes who are competing.  They slow down a little bit.  Being in the fitness world for over ten years I came into contact with many fitness models.  They would work out 6-8 hours a day in the months leading up to the competition.  Their food was so restricted that it almost looked like punishment.  Very little carbs, no sweets and water.  The day before the competition some of the gals would stop drinking water so they would not be bloated.  Competition day arrived and they showed off their muscles.  After the competition a lot of the girls immediately had a cupcake!  Others had that most important glass of wine.  While others just simply had a good meal and crashed.  They took a good bit of quiet and down time until the next competition.  My husband always says to me that we should ponder life like an Olympian.  We have times of unparalleled discipline and sacrifice.  We go to the competition or the task and compete.  We have an outcome, we take our rest until it is time to take the next sprint.  Those are wise words indeed.  Rest. Find your strength and embrace grace.