My goals could not be reached unless I could get through that door. I sat on the porch, head in hands, pondering. "There's got to be a way," I reasoned. I felt a strong sense of frustration, anger, rage that things couldn't go the way I felt they should go.

In the stillness, an idea crept into my mind. A simple idea. Too simple, I thought. But the idea persisted. "Take the old key out. Nothing positive or new can happen unless you take the old key out." I felt like I was receiving a message from the Holy Spirit.

I stood up, turned around and walked over to the door. I took out the key that was lodged in the door. As I did, the weight of the old ways of doing things seemed lifted from my mind. I felt free. Freer than I'd felt for a long time. The ancient ways of doing things seemed to scatter behind me like autumn leaves blowing off trees that had stood in my garden for centuries. Indeed, those ancient trees themselves representing ages and ages of doing things only one way, came unearthed and toppled harmlessly to the ground.

The Holy Spirit shivered through me. I reached into my pocket and I grasped the right key hopefully, prayerfully, in my hand. Would it work?

The key slid almost effortlessly into the lock and, as I turned it, I sensed all of God's love and joy and peace cascading down the deep inclines of my mind. I felt I was in the lead car, waving to the crowd, as confetti was tossed from all the buildings we passed in a magnificent ticker tape parade. The new key to a new way of life slid into the lock because the old key was taken out. How much more simple could it be?

I realized that unless I let go of all that I thought was true, nothing could happen. God simply could not write afresh on my heart. It occurred to me, as I grasped the door knob to go into my new life, that God would not impose the truth on me. I needed to be willing to make way for it. I needed to let go of the old.

The ecstasy I felt as I entered my new life could not be described. The pure joy and love and peace that embraced me upon my entrance, has not waned. It is with me still.  

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