The Day I Opened The Door To Love

Today, August 2, is my spiritual birthday. The day I was born into a new family, a new life. And Love.

Every year, God reminds me of the exact date. I would forget otherwise. It wasn’t important to anyone else.

But Jesus reminds me it’s very important to Him.

So, it was 50-plus years ago, on a steamy August night, apparently on the 2^nd, that I was feeling very low. I was 15 years old. Depressed, I now realize. All this confusion, all this loneliness, all these feelings, no one to talk to, no one who understood.

I tried talking to my older brother. What a desperate move that was. He was the last person in the world who would understand his highly sensitive sister. He was just as practiced as I was in suppressing feelings. I don’t think I ever had an important conversation with him in my life, then or after.

I don’t remember what was going on with my friends, but there was a feeling of being forsaken. I didn’t know what to do with myself.

So I walked up the street and sat on the curb in the steamy Connecticut night. Just sat there.

And then something happened. Suddenly I thought about Jesus.

I had a friend at that time, dear Debbie Drury (now Nelson), who was always telling me about Jesus. I thought she was a freak. But to be quite honest, she had a joy I ached for. Though I ridiculed her, and even ripped up one of those “God has a wonderful plan for your life” tracts in front of her, deep down I wished I had that joy.

Sitting on that curb on that lonely night, I remembered a dream I’d had.

In the dream I was with my family, camping. It was night, and I was lost in the woods. I wandered around until I saw a wooden bench, and a light, like a street light, in a clearing. (How symbolic dreams are!) Someone was sitting on the bench. A man.

Somehow I felt he was safe. He beckoned to me to sit beside him, and asked what was on my mind. I found myself pouring out my heart to him.

He listened, nodding, seeming as if he totally understood me. Then he got up, I got up, and he hugged me.

Oh, the peace I felt in that embrace! Oh, my, I’ve never felt such peace since, except for another similar dream I had decades later.

I longed for that peace. I searched for that peace since the dream. I knew it would only come from a relationship. In my teenage immature foolishness, I thought it would come from a boyfriend or husband someday.

But sitting on that curb that August 2 night, it suddenly all came together. The relationship I ached for was with the Lord of Life and Love, and He was waiting for me. He was there, sitting on the curb next to me, as He was in the dream on that wooden bench in the woods.

And I understood it all, all that Debbie had told me, and I opened the door of my heart, and asked Him in.

Life has never been the same since.

Oh, I’m still healing from my childhood traumas. But I have to tell you: God has been healing me all along, at a pace He knows is doable for me.

I’ve written before about how, when you hit the 60s or even before, the strategies you’ve used to cope seem to suddenly stop working. Perhaps that’s because by then, you may have accumulated enough resilience to face those traumas you’ve pushed down all your life.

So for the past several years, God has gently led me to understand more and more about the traumas of my early life, the patterns that served well then but are a detriment now, and what to do about them.

He had led me to The Healing Codes at just the right time. Those prior years of healing helped me when I had to settle my mother’s estate and Pandora’s box was opened. The family dynamics were so clear.

Against that backdrop, the hand of grace that had led me in different directions stood out in bold relief.

Grace had enabled me to make different choices than other family members. My life looks drastically different than it would have had I not opened the door to Love all those decades ago. You have only to look at my other family members’ lives, who did not turn to grace but followed the predictable paths of unhealed trauma results, to know that “’twas grace that led me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

I want to honor that grace, and to witness to the One who asked me to write this, the One relationship that has always been the model of what relationships can and should be.

Because of Him, I was able to marry a good man with whom I’ve lived for 45 years; rear two wonderful children who, despite the deficits of our parenting, are leading happy, stable, productive lives.

I’m part of a few wonderful communities, I’ve had a fulfilling career with different twists and turns, and now I’m in my wisdom years, facing a new journey with its unique challenges.

I know I’m not alone on that path, and that makes all the difference.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20).

Have you heard His knock? Have you ever opened the door? Are you dining with him every day?

If you have, and you would like to deepen that relationship with Immanuel, I invite you to check out the Immanuel Connection call. We meet on the first Tuesday of the month, virtually,  at 11:30 a.m. Central time. If that time doesn’t suit you, email me (diane at healingcodescoaching.com) and we’ll see what we can do. There is a recording, but the live call is really where the action is.