Through the closed door by Tracy Williamson

 Sometimes as I look back on my life it seems that the person I was, is hidden behind a closed door.  Who am I?  Who was I? What are these fleeting moments of memory? Why am I locked behind a closed door? How can I open it and will I dare to go through and see where the path leads me? 

My memories are hazy.  People meander in and out of my focus but just too far for me to grasp.  I catch a shrill giggle; my soul shrinks from a buried shame, I taste the sweetness of a forbidden chocolate and touch the warm fur of my precious dog.  A fragrance arises, bitter and compelling and I am there again, transported back to an age that is gone.

How could I rediscover these furled memories without the written word.?  Even as I write  'warm fur of my precious dog' that closed door opens and I find myself on a misty path. I suddenly remember the woods, my dog running alongside; my hasty steps, my need to escape and be safe.  Huddling into the cleft of a tree my dog cuddled into me.  Warm, loving, needing, safe.

Words have captured those memories.  I can now connect with that scared little me and reclaim her.  I embrace her and welcome her home.

Other blurred memories enshroud me, but as I step forward tentatively on that path, fleeting words in my mind seize the unseeable and suddenly they become clear.  The enticing roar of waves on a stony beach, my beloved, majestic oak bending and tossing in the gales and me tossing in my bed, my blankets my den.  

Where will that path lead me? What does God want me to see and rediscover.  Words will illuminate more doors, more paths. 

David saw deer panting for water (Psalm 42) and recognised his own heart thirst. 'Why are you downcast O my soul?' he asks.  That question acts as a gateway to the buried memories of happier times  'I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God with shouts of joy and thanksgiving.' he writes. As I read his words they transport me and give me expression for my own memories.  The mist clears as I see afresh, joy on the beach, the wonder of sinking into hot water, uninhibited laughter with friends, hiding behind a curtain crying for my dad.

As David wanders through the gateway of word thoughts and memories, his landscape becomes clear and his eyes see,  The Living Word guides his thinking to see how God has always been there for him.  He is able to affirm that 'by day the Lord directs His love, at night His song is with me.'  Words are opening the gateway for David to worship and recognise that however downcast he may feel, God still loves him. God is with him, always with him,  He is being transformed from staggering in the blindness of half buried memories and pain, to someone who's eyes and heart are being opened to God's beauty and love.  

Like David I can write to my own heart:

'Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my saviour and my God.' 

Thus my closed door has opened, words and writing have opened the gateway to the misty path of memories and from there to the beauty of certainty in God's love and care.  

I will worship.  I will love, I will be.  

Tracy Williamson 

but what that shame was I cannot quite recall.  If only I could catch it I would be whole, but it skips just out of my reach.