Behind the Door

 February 14, 2024

Happy Valentine’s Day! It seems a bit incongruous that this year, Valentine’s Day falls on Ash Wednesday. Are we supposed to repent for falling in love? Linda and I celebrated Valentine’s Day by me leaving her at the airport. She flew to Virginian to care for a friend who had major surgery yesterday. If you knew how little Linda likes to travel, and how she dreaded doing it by herself, you would know the meaning of Valentine’s Day. Her time in Virginia, away from the home she loves, is a true gift of love. We’ve had fifty-three of them together, so I guess we can sacrifice one for a friend.

My thoughts for this evening actually go back a couple days. Our daily reading through the Chronological Bible have been a bit challenging recently, as they have focused for a couple days on details of the construction of the OT tabernacle and the vestments for the priests. Aside from being extravagantly expensive and beautiful, it has been hard for me to glean much from these chapters. So I turned to my gratitude calendar to help me focus my thinking. The offering for the day was “three gifts found behind a door.” Hmm.

The first two were easy. For me, the first gift behind a door was the warmth of our home when I come in from a rather chilly outside. Sitting by the fire is a heavenly experience, and I get the first indication of that warmth as soon as I open the front door. The second gift behind a door is actually the first in importance: Jesus said, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone opens the door, I will come in to him, eat with him, and he with me.” Sometimes it feels like there is a wall between Jesus and ourselves. In fact, there is; it’s our sin. But there is a door in that wall, and Jesus is knocking, waiting for us to answer so he can come in and wash away the sin and the filth accompanying it. The Gift behind that door is Jesus himself! You can’t get any better than that.

I had trouble coming up with the last gift behind a door. It took me two days before it dawned on me. Actually, it sang to me. For Christmas, Linda gave me a gift I had been wanting for years—a cuckoo clock! On the hour, the little door opens, the bird pops out and sings. It’s whimsical and utterly nonessential, but when that door opens and the bird pops out, I smile, and am thankful.

Three doors, warmth, wondrous salvation, and whimsey. I am truly a blessed man. One other door awaits; In a few days, the automatic doors to the airport will slide open and on the other side will be my Valentine, my wife.