Revolving Doors

Remember those revolving doors at department stores? As a kid from Columbia, MO, I would always hesitate when we’d visit a larger city and have to go through one of those doors especially when there were a lot of people going in and out. When do you step in? When do you step out? Is the door going to smash me into little pieces if I even attempt it? Luckily, there was always my mom or dad nearby to take me by the hand and help me get in the door and then come out into an entirely new location.

I admit there has been times when my life seems to be stuck either outside one of those doors or in one of those doors. Stuck on the outside would be times when I was too timid to even try to attempt doing or being anything other that what I was at the time. It sounded a little like the poor me syndrome. You know how it goes, “Nothing good ever happens to me. I guess I’ll always be poor. I guess I’ll never have a new car. I guess I’ll never have the good job…”

This is usually said while looking from the outside into the bright, shiny department store knowing that the only way in was through that scary revolving door. Afraid of being shredded by the door and mob, you would simply look through the window and cower in fear. It is the fear of getting outside your comfort zone. That fear entraps you in a victim, or even, survivor mentality. You would like to go to the next level, but something holds you back.

I think Elvis might have felt the same way. In the song, “If I Can Dream,” he says, “If I can dream of a warmer sun where hope keeps shining on every man, tell why, oh why, won’t that sun appear?”

Elvis was quite the philosopher because he tells us in the next verse; “We’re lost in a cloud with too much rain.” Standing on the outside of the revolving door is a little like that feeling. You can’t risk stepping inside because your are scared about what might happen to you. You think, "I’m too slow. I’m too young. I’m too old. I don’t know how. I have too many kids. I don’t have any kids." The excuses can take any form. We all know our own.

Then, Elvis also had something to say to the person getting dizzy inside the revolving door, never finding a way out. “We’re trapped in a world that’s troubled with pain.” Man, is that ever true. I’m sure in your life there is pain somewhere. Sometimes circumstances seem like pain and simply overwhelm us.

Elvis knew the answer, although I don’t really think he ever listened to his own songs or he might really still be alive today. He would be 85. (I looked it up as I’m not really a trivia pro). Still in this song he tells us, “But as long as a man has the strength to dream He can redeem his soul and fly.”

The key word here, to me, is “dream.” What do you dream of? What are your excuses for not being able to get there? What is one step you can take to come closer to your dream?

Could it be as simple as thinking of yourself as a victor rather than a victim or survivor? Could it be as simple as knowing you can live in abundance today?
Maybe it’s as easy as seeing that “out there in the dark, there’s a beckoning candle.”

One last thought for those trying to get in the door, there are friends at Freedom Seminar who want to help you step through that door or past the tangled maze of excuses to the point where you can start living your dream today.
If you are tired of either being in a revolving door or standing outside afraid of one, join us for Roots and Wings, Nov. 10 –14!

~ Teresa Parker
I am a Whole, Happy, Healthy
Woman of God.