A turning of the latch

I have an affinity for gates.

Tolkien writes, "Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate."

And I am intrigued.  The mystery.  What lies beyond?   

Beyond the gate in the book, The Secret Garden, for the children; a creeping awareness that perhaps one should not be there so with stealth and a bit of fear exploring the magnificent beauty that captivates. Risking danger of discovery.

Or through the wardrobe in The Chronicles Of Narnia, where, in a big, old, rambling English house providing shelter for four children during WWII, Lucy, the youngest, pushes aside the old coats and furs to enter an amazing world ruled by the white witch where for over 100 years; deep winter. 

I look at the gate. A symbol for entering a garden, a place unknown; a new world.

Embracing a new country as did Peter and Susan and Edmund and Lucy.  Taking a risk to walk through that wardrobe or through the gate. Perhaps even a new way of thinking and living and being.

I have been living in winter too long.  I am taking a risk. I tug at the gate to enter.

And this is what I am discovering.

The telling that I struggle too.  Expectations put on us by ourselves, by others; the difficulty of life rocking our world.  And the constant striving.  Attempting to make a world that is beautiful and meaningful but somehow always beyond the grasp.  The letting go.

The taking off of the mask.  Becoming real and vulnerable and transparent.  Telling you things that scare me because maybe they scare you too. 

Daring to enter a world where God is.  To come to understand that what may not be politically correct may be a beautiful place to live because the key to the gate is humility.  And by understanding my striving accomplishes nothing except pride or failure or perhaps both.

To celebrate brokenness.  Because it leads to the gate where God is.

And there I can become the person God intended.  The masks have to go.  The striving unnecessary.  For pride shuts grace down and grace is my emotional home.  The vulnerability, the opportunity to be real, the authenticity; boldly trusting in how God sees us, deeply pleasing if we are in relationship with Him.  A place of rest.

And so I never tire of returning home with my gate welcoming; the handle screeching a little as I turn it but always finding grace.  Always grace with a God who is so much bigger and better than anything I could have imagined.  And it is through the pain that I made the discovery.  It is worth the search, the turning of a latch.

J.R.R. Tolkien, renown for his storytelling, understood this truth; redemptive living.