Closed Door Seasons.
Determined to prove I could make it on my own, I officially moved out of my parents’ house a month before graduating high school.
By that summer, I was living in my first real apartment with my best friend and thought I had everything figured out. At the time, I was working in a portrait studio as a receptionist and studying photography at the community college. With a job in my field and a recent engagement to my high school sweetheart, everything felt like it was falling into place.
Little did I know that everything I had built was about to fall apart.
One day after Art Appreciation 101, I sensed Holy Spirit nudging my heart: Go buy that piece of artwork in the college gallery. It was small and overpriced—a quirky mixed-media piece in a wooden shadow box. Keys glued to the bottom, a random cutout of a chicken, and a backdrop of closed doors with one slightly open on the right. Stamped across the glass in bold black letters were the words:
WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES, ANOTHER DOOR OPENS.
If you had told me at the time that it would go on to become one of my most prized possessions—an anchor of hope in some of my darkest seasons—I wouldn’t have believed you. I didn’t know the artist and was just beginning to recognize God’s voice. Was He really asking me to buy a piece of ugly chicken art with a cheesy quote about doors? I wasn’t even sure it would fit in my backpack. I had bills to pay, something to prove, and no financial cushion. Spending what little I had on something as seemingly insignificant—and expensive—as a piece of original artwork felt irresponsible. But I couldn’t shake the sense that I needed to buy it anyway. What if it really was God speaking to me?
Not long after I found a place to hang up my new piece of art, my world came crashing down.
It all happened so fast.
Over Christmas, our engagement ended painfully, sending me spiraling into a deep depression and upending my social circle. Not long after, my roommate went on tour with a band-and never came back. She ghosted me and left me alone on the lease.
I’ll never forget that sinking feeling of sitting in my empty apartment, all alone lighting candles in the cold because the utilities had been shut off.
To escape the grief, I took a birthday trip to the mountains-but ended up with a broken ankle. Then I lost my job. All of this-the breakup, the lease abandonment, the injury, and losing my job-happened within three months.
Next to go was the apartment.
I couldn’t shake the depression that semester, failing out of school and forfeiting my financial aid too.
With all the doors around me closing, was God still with me at all?
Everything I had worked so hard to build on my own was now gone.
I had given my life to the Lord three years before but where was He in all of this? I'd pray and try to read my Bible, but I didn't feel His presence anymore. I just felt numb. Slowly, I let doubt creep into my heart. The heaviness had taken over. I started drinking and smoking, living out of my car until I finally humbled myself enough to ask for help. I was able to stay with a relative for a short time.
As I unpacked my things and tried my best to stuff my emotions, I distinctly remember finding that little piece of art from the college. It wasn't so ugly after all. The words took on a whole new meaning and brought me hope I desperately needed.
WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES, ANOTHER DOOR OPENS.
What I couldn’t see at the time amidst so much pain and loss was that little piece of art I had purchased, right before everything fell apart, was God’s gentle reminder and subtle reassurance of His faithfulness to me. My story wasn't over. He had a plan and purpose for my life, full of hope, healing and redemption-redirecting my path and eventually launching me into the nations. He was calling me to venture into a lifestyle of walking by faith daily, shutting the doors of sin in my life and allowing Him to open doors that no man could shut (Isaiah 22:22).
That summer, the door that opened for me, was with YWAM (Youth With A Mission). I had zero desire to attend a missionary training school at the time—I felt too broken and bound up in my sin. With every other door closed and the support supernaturally pouring in, I boarded a plane to Kona, Hawaii to join a Discipleship Training School where I spent the next 6 months being wooed by the love and grace of God.
He had rescued me from my own stubbornness and pride, thinking that I had to figure everything out on my own and brought me into a season of radical repentance. Not only did He begin healing the broken pieces in my heart, I started to watch Him supernaturally heal through me as I led others to the Lord during a three month mission trip to Ireland.
Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you. -Ephesians 3:20 TPT
The following summer a friend felt led by the Lord to buy me a one-way plane ticket to California. I embarked on my first “faith-journey” with nothing more than $35 to my name, a small backpack and a burning heart for young people to die to the American dream and come alive in knowing Christ. I spent the next year traveling the coast, walking through the doors He opened for me before eventually returning home to graduate college debt-free with a different major.
This story of closed and opened doors that can only be unlocked by faith isn't just mine-it's woven throughout Scripture. One story that I've been so encouraged by is that of Abrahams.
The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.” -Genesis 12:1
When Abraham said yes to following God, he wasn’t handed a map, he was given a closed door. Ur of the Chaldeans was no longer home for him according to the Lord. It was a closed door. Have you ever been met by the Lord with a closed door but unsure about where the next open door was? Even if you’ve never felt prompted to give away all of your belongings and move from country-to-country, Abraham’s story is one we can all relate to when it comes to placing our trust in God’s plan for us. Allow me to explain.
Have you ever been on a road trip with a friend who insisted on using the GPS on their phone and telling you the directions, instead of letting you see the map for yourself? Relying on someone else’s cues—can leave us feeling vulnerable and unsure. When we're the one driving, we usually end up asking to see the map at some point, especially when we are being led down a different route than the one we are used to. “Are you sure this is the right way to go?” We find ourselves wanting to grab their phone, zoom out and see the full street, know the estimated arrival time, the traffic delays, the turns before they come. Making eyes with the map gives us a sense of certainty, safety, and independence. Most of us would rather put the coordinates into our own GPS because, deep down, we want to determine our own course - we want control.
But walking by faith doesn’t work that way. Faith doesn’t demand to see the GPS - fear and doubt does that. So how do we gain more faith? We put our hope in who God says that He is and we seek Him to know Him, regardless of our circumstances. We actively chose to trust Him as our Navigator.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. -Proverbs 3:5-6
The original word used in the Bible for the word 'acknowledge,’ is the word ‘yada’ which simply means to know. When we don't know what's next in life, we can make the mistake of anxiously obsessing over where we will end up and placing our focus on the wrong thing.
The truth is that opportunities come and go in our lives - the doors that open and shut along the way don't define us. Society tells us that we have to arrive at a certain destination in life before we've “made it” and if we don't, we are pathetic. These were the lies that led me into a tailspin of despair as a 19-year-old. When in reality, no opportunity or success in this life can compare to the journey of simply seeking Him to know Him. A famous man by the name of C.S. Lewis put it this way, “He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only."
What’s wild about Abraham is that he’s gone down in history as a man who went on a radical, blind-faith journey with God, yet he’s also one of only four people mentioned in the Old Testament, as a friend of God (James 2:23, Isaiah 41:8). Maybe this is because Abraham came to realize that the journey wasn’t ever about the destination, it was about coming to know the one who was leading him.
Sometimes it takes losing it all to come to realize that a clearer understanding of the goodness of God and His love for us, is all we really need. So if you are in a “closed door season,” know this-God is faithful and in it all. When we ask Him to open the right doors for us-doors that help us grow in our understanding of Him-we can rest assured that He will open the right doors for us at just the right time. In fact, the best door we can ever go through is Him.
Jesus said to them, “Very truly I say to you, I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” -John 10:9
Where in your life are you asking to “see the map” instead of trusting God with the next step? Where have you seen the Lord open and close doors in your life for your benefit? What would it look like to seek Him to know Him in this season of your life? Are you seeking Him for the destination or seeking Him to know Him deeper?
Pray and invite Holy Spirit to deepen your trust in His leadership. Recommit yourself to giving Him your ‘yes’ and letting Him lead you!
Check out my recent book, Knowing I Am: A Study On The I Am Statements of God for more encouragement, reflective prompts and tools to grow in your faith.
Thanks for reading!
