Today, I had a locksmith come and change the locks on the house my parents designed and built and lived in for the last 26 years. As of next week, it is rented. For the first time in this house’s existence, non-members of the Thomas clan will live there. The renters are good friends, and it is a gift to both of us that this worked out. She and her family will find gracious living there. I won’t have to worry about its care as it will be in loving hands. Still . . .
I remember the first time I ever locked that house upon leaving it. It was three days after my mother’s death last September. I had been gone for a while to help plan the memorial service, and had come home, relieved to find the hospital bed and other equipment necessary for my mother’s last days removed. My sister and I sat outside for a while talking about the details of the service and then she left. My brother had already gone to her house to take care of some computer problems. Others coming back in town for the service had not yet arrived.
After my sister left, I sat outside for quite a while longer, enjoying the peace and beauty of the space. In the twenty five years since my parents built that house, and in all the many hours, days and weeks I had spent there, that was the first time I’d ever been alone there. I locked the front door when I left. That was also the first time I had ever done that upon leaving their house, for even after my father’s death, my hospitable and trusting mother kept those doors open and unlocked in case family, friend or neighbor would want to stop by. She had only locked them when going to bed.
I never counted the doors and locks before today. I had guessed five. I was several doors short. Forgot the one leading to the back patio from the Master bedroom. Forgot the one from the garage to the front lawn. Forgot the one under the stairs off the half-bath–in fact, I never even knew that door had a lock on it. It leads to one of those under-stair storage closets. Perhaps they had anticipated keeping valuables there, but that seems strange since there weren’t any valuables in that house.
But now those locks are all changed. The Manor, as it is now formally known, will have new, albeit temporary, masters in it. I will no longer have free access to that space. I had not anticipated this sense of loss, yet another shift in life circumstances, another adjustment.
Locks have many purposes. They can keep things safe. They can also exclude and refuse admittance to other things, people, experiences. Many of us keep the most tender and vulnerable portions of our emotions and thoughts safely locked away, hidden from other people, and perhaps, we think, hidden away from God.
But I know that God knows all things, and chooses to love all things, even as that kind of love demands growing maturity. While the locks on that house are a good thing for new tenants, the locks in my heart do little good at all if I do indeed seek to be fully God’s woman, molded and transformed by God’s good graces.
So, this late afternoon, I pray, “Dear God, I offer to You all those previously locked-up spaces and invite You to come in and find welcome there. Thank You for the love that comes before You and after You. Peace is Your gift to me. I receive it thankfully.”
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