Always We Begin Again By Leeana TankersleySample

Day Two

Opening Up

Scripture: Isaiah 43:19

It was late spring and the breeze brought up the jasmine from the gate where it climbs. I walked through the house, room by room, opening doors and windows. Every opened window, every opened door, a prayer. 

Come in.

Help.

Thank you. 

I opened the entire house. Cranked windows wide open. Found stools and baskets to prop the doors. And then I stood in the very center of our house. I tilted my chin up slightly, and I closed my eyes and let the air move across my face. 

Sometimes a house feels tight, no matter how many square feet it is. Sometimes a heart and a life feel tight. Sometimes a marriage feels tight. Sometimes our work or our calling feels tight. Sometimes the skin we’re in feels tight. We need a door or a window to open, a fresh breeze perspective, the movement of change, but we don’t always know how to get there from here. 

When this tightness arrives—for any reason—my initial response is to lock, seal, slam, secure, bolt. I shut out. I don’t want my imperfections to be witnessed. I don’t think I can tolerate that kind of exposure. I do this as a means of self-protection. I do this as a way to control my image as someone who is special. 

I avoided until I could no longer avoid anymore, and that’s when the gentle voice whispered in my ear, like it had so many times before, Leeana, always we begin again. 

The word begin has unique origins. In fact, there aren’t many other words like it. In its etymology, one of the meanings of begin is “to open up.” 

Opening up is vulnerable. Letting others in, letting air and space and light in, letting God in, letting truth in. I know it feels counterintuitive to let the light shine on something we’d prefer to keep hidden, to reach out when we’d rather turn in, to actually believe that the truth—however scary—will be what sets us free.

Can we trust that opening up has more gifts than staying shut, hiding, defending? 

Reflection: Is there a place in your life where you are slammed shut? A relationship, a fear, an issue of faith?

Prayer: God, what are you inviting me to open up in my life? In what ways are you calling me to begin again?