There’s been a photo circulating on Facebook the past few days.
While I can really appreciate the color and patina of those doors (pretty similar to this treatment I did… FAVE!), I’m having a hard time with this quote. Let’s chat about it shall we?
I love a good encouraging quote. And I know that this one is meant to be inspirational… but if I had settled for ‘it not being my door’ …I wouldn’t have my 3 beautiful children. They simply would not exist.
The house would be quiet.
The dishes would be done.
There would be no smashed raisins in the carpet.
The tree would be beautifully decorated with delicate matchy ornaments.
How do you know when to FIGHT, and when to move along and chalk it up as ‘not your door’?
If you’re not familiar with our fertility story, you can catch up here. It might also clear up your questions about why our blog name is ‘Sawdust and Embryos’.
Should we not exhaust all resources before we pass by each door? Especially if it’s important! Life changing!
How can we know?
I realize there’s no real answer to this question, but it’s something I ponder a lot. Surely there are those of you that think about these deep and profound things at the most random times throughout the day too?
Let’s chat about it in the comments below!
- Has there been a situation where you’re glad you didn’t give up?
- Have you found yourself wondering if a door is closing because it’s ‘not your door’ or because you’re supposed to karate-chop it down?
- Have you ever felt that a door was opening to you… only to later realize it was the wrong decision?
- Have you ever felt strongly that a certain ‘door’ was meant for you, but after exhausting all resources realized it was time to move along?
-
Have you passed by a door, only to regret not FIGHTING for it down the road?
Related:
-
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Masonite Doors. All opinions…
I think it so very much depends on the situation. Knowing when to move on and when to stay and break it down is something we each have to learn from life. If you didn’t win a sweepstakes or get chosen for a promotion or someone rejects you personally or some other thing you wanted but was a decision for another person to make: it wasn’t your door. In those cases I don’t see it as sour grapes at all. Just knowing when to realize it wasn’t meant to be.
When it comes to things where the decisions are yours I think you get to decide whether to keep struggling for it or not. Free will can be a beautiful thing!
This is a tricky one for me. We have a beautiful 3-year-old boy thanks to a fresh IVF cycle, but all attempts to make him a sibling have resulted in miscarriage or failed cycles. Right now we are trying to decide what to do next and how much more we can take. I think deciding to bust down closed doors is an awesome attitude to take in the face of adversity, but if despite your best intentions, you find yourself beating your head against the closed door, I don’t think there’s any shame in finding a new door. I think it really just depends on each person’s unique situation. If we decide to focus on our son and get off the infertility roller coaster, I don’t think that’s giving up, I think it’s just a sign of knowing your heart and its limits.
“it wasn’t your door” sounds like sour grapes. I don’t like it either. Just give up and accept the fact that you lose… good day sir!
Or…. Break the damn door down,….or find an open window to shimmy through! …Way more empowering.
The first quote feels like something your crotchety old aunt says because she doesn’t know what else to say….and you weakly smile and say “Oh, yeah, hmm, thank you,” when you really want to say “WELL WHY THE HECK NOT?!”
“It wasn’t your door”
Waaa WAAAAAA.
Christy… you’re hilarious. Love it.
Hi Beth, I have been reading your blog for years, so I feel like I know you personally even though you have no idea who I am! Haha!
Anyway, your post made me cry today. Although my husband and I had 2 wonderful boys we could not imagine life without, it seemed as if someone was missing from our family. We had been trying to have another baby for almost 3 years and all tests indicated that there was NO explanation for our secondary infertility. I prayed constantly that God would take away my desire to have another child and/or tell us that the “door” was shut. As our last resort, we eventually tried IVF. I committed to trying it one time and if it didn’t work, we were going to be done. Door shut.
We welcomed our beautiful Evelyn Grace just a month or so before your little Cyprus. If I had just passed by that door and left well enough alone instead of busting through it, we would not have our adorable smiley little girl who lights up my heart every time I think of her. I don’t know all the reasons we had to go through everything we did, but I’m so glad God did not just swing the door open. Our lives are so much richer when we have some bad junk too! “Maybe if you aren’t unhappy sometimes, you don’t know how to be happy” (A Wrinkle in Time)!!!
Thanks for sharing your life through your blog! It has been a great inspiration to me!
Jennerfer, what a beautiful story. And I love your perspective on this matter. I’m so glad you got your miracle! Is your girl crawling/walking yet? Cypress is not very ambitious! LOL!
She’s only army crawling. No pulling up or walking yet. She’s quite happy to just sit there and wait for me to come get her!
I think this quote fits your situation perfectly. The ‘ normal way of getting pregnant’ was not your door. Your door was the door of the fertility specialist 🙂 that door opened to three little girls.
In the last few years I’ve answered a call in my life to go into the foreign mission field. So far, I’ve been on 3 short term trips, and I’m working on being placed with a full-time family to work as an assistant missionary for 6 months. In the last few years, there have been lots of open doors, closed doors, and doors I’ve either worked to open on my own or walked past. It’s never easy. That’s for SURE…knowing which door to press harder on or which one to walk away from.
For me, the door that gives me the most peace is the door I seek to walk through. One of my mentors has pressed into me to “follow your peace.” And it’s something I try to practice daily. There are some doors that don’t open for me immediately, but I press on them, in an effort to see if that is the path I’m supposed to go down. If I feel any hesitation in my spirit about pressing that door or that path, I back off. But if it takes some work on my part (here I see the situation with your infertility) and I feel a sort of peace going into that door and working to get it open, I continue to press.
I don’t think things in life are just going to come to us without any work. Doors aren’t going to magically fly open. (If they do, someone PLEASE tell me the secret recipe!!) Any door is going to take some amount of work on our part. For me, it’s the door where I feel the most peace walking through. That’s how I know which door to go through.
Your babies are a precious gift. Your door wasn’t the typical door, but you aren’t the typical girl either! You’re unique and special. And so are your babies. It took a unique and special door (albeit somewhat challenging and tough, I’m sure) to have the precious gifts you have now.
I question this idea all the time. We have been house hunting for a long time now. And every time we don’t get a particular house people say if it was meant to be it would have worked out. But then I wonder if maybe we didn’t get it because we just didn’t try hard enough. What if we just said well they didn’t accept that offer so let’s just walk away and not counter-offer because if it was meant to be ours they would have accepted that? Currently we are on hold for buying a house we love. We are surprised no one else has snatched it up. We are worried there is something wrong with it that we missed but at this point we have decided this is the house for us and if there is something then we will figure it out.
I feel it’s an obstacle that everyone has at some point in their lives, or even in their daily lives. The obstacle may be different for each person or it may be the exact thing. All we can do is deal with it the best we can to open those closed doors if you so choose to, or nail the sucker shut if it’s the ex’s door. 😉 Good luck on your door – be strong either way
Bethany, I look at your door dilemma a bit differently. Yes, your door to having children the ‘normal’ way was closed, but after all your searching, hard work, money, pain, tears, and prayers you found a different door that was open. We don’t know why God closed the first door for you and then made the second door so hard to open, but we do know that you and Nick have three beautiful daughters. They are no less of a miracle from God than if they had been conceived the easy way. I am so proud of you for being committed and not giving up.
I think it’s how you label the door. Have you labeled the door “Becoming a mom” when it should be labeled “Getting pregnant after a romantic evening with your husband and a bottle of wine”? The second door was not mine, but the first one was (after a trip to a fertility clinic in the Czech Republic). Our beautiful twin girls turn 7 next month!
Birgit! Well said, this is exactly how I choose my doors. I have yet to have one not open yet when I give it the name it deserves and one that I can positively push through in my life.
Yeah… I’m kinda forceful with my doors. I have the problem of thinking every pretty door that crosses my path is MY DOOR and I can think of nothing else but opening it. It consumes me. This has worked to my advantage in several cases (infertility, jobs, etc), but has also backfired horrifically (mostly relationships and just being greedy). So I think you are right, there is no “correct answer”. But that’s the beauty of the life God gave us and the gift of free will. We make our own choices, mistakes and miracles alike. 🙂
I’ve had my whole world end and start anew so many times that the door metaphor doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. I think of it more as building on a foundation, and if I’ve learned anything, you have to start from where you are, and if the foundation is weak, it’s worth the time to strengthen it, else everything will just come tumbling down anyway. That, and the time passes regardless, so you may as well fight for what you want. So what if it takes ten years? Start now and you’ll have it when you get there. Ten years happens either way. Thanks for all of your posts, I really appreciate them.
I love your posts and how sincere you are! We all make, and have made mistakes. We had doors open and close. At the time it happens, most of us find it hard to deal with – only to find out that it was the best thing for us. Going after what you want (children, career ) or anything you desire, is something only YOU know if you should go after. No one is going through your journey, and no one will ever feel exactly they way you (or I) do. I am glad you went after what you believed is the right thing for you. I find that the more I follow my heart – regardless what people around me say, I create more of what I want out of life. Wishing you and your beautiful family Happy Holidays!
I like to take a closed door as a challenge- the more you tell me I can’t do something, the harder I’m going to work to make it happen. I was told a lot I didn’t make enough to live on my own, and school may not be for me, and I don’t know enough to commit to homeownership… so I got an apartment at 21, finished my master’s degree by 22, and bought a mess of a house that I fixed up myself at 25. Take that, world! haha
LOVE THIS… go girl! You and I take closed doors the same way 😉
wow! what’s next??
🙂
I opened the wrong door (what I thought was right at the time) 20 years ago, when I met my first husband. We divorced in 2007, when my beautiful son was 18M at the time. Without opening that door, I wouldn’t have his cheery little face (he’s 10 now), and sweet smile. God has been faithful through my painful and now wonderful journey, and His grace is sufficient for me (and my family). I have been married now for nearly 7 years to Mr. God-Given Right, and we have a beautiful fireball 5-year old daughter. Beauty from ashes. I have learned that if there is no peace in the decision made, then it most likely isn’t God’s will for me or my family. Blessings to all for a Christ-centered and beautiful Christmas.
Wow. What a profound post. I agree with you, Beth, that sometimes it’s about perseverance when the door is closed. Creative thinking, hard work and perseverance. The reward is that much sweeter when you have to work hard for it.
I fought the same fight as you and have my beautiful and utterly nutty little boy to show for it. I prefer the saying “when one door closes another one opens”. It seems much more fitting.
I’m relatively new to your blog and also an Iowa girl! Thank you so much for sharing your story (and projects and humor :). After much denial, stress and tests, my husband and I are starting the IVF process after Christmas and this exact question weighs on my mind SO MUCH. We are about to commit so much emotion, energy and money into the process and I’m already so nervous that it will fail. (Which is why your question hits me so hard). FYI — we are at the University of Iowa too! How do you get through it? How did you know for sure that this was your fight? Any extra tips or advice? Thanks so much!