Where One Door Closes

Honore Daumier, Don Quixote in the Mountains

There is a line in the novel Don Quixote that has come to hold great meaning for me.  Speaking to his friend Sancho, Don Quixote noted that the proverbs we so often quote in this life are true, being "drawn from experience itself, mother of all knowledge."  Don Quixote then states that one proverb in particular is true, namely the proverb which states "if one door closes, another will be opened" (Cervantes, Don Quixote, chapter 21, paragraph 2).

I first remember hearing this proverb in 2004.  At the time I was a Junior at BYU and I was enrolled in the second of three courses for training potential seminary teachers for the Church.  I had wanted to be a seminary teacher since I had been in high school.  I had planned for it, hoped for it, prepared for it, and prayed for it.  But in the Fall of 2004 I found myself teaching a class of 15 year olds at Timpview High School for 10 days and I began to realize that the ability to teach teenagers was simply not a skill that I possessed.  No matter how much planning, preparing, praying, or hoping I did, I did not possess the ability to captivate those students.  Everything I had worked towards seemed to come crashing to the ground.  A couple of weeks after the ten day experience had ended, I received a letter in the mail explaining that I had not been invited to continue in the program, and included with that letter was a copy of President Howard W. Hunter's talk "The Opening and Closing of Doors."  It was in this talk that I first really heard this short proverb.

In that masterful sermon, President Hunter taught:  "Doors close regularly in our lives, and some of these closings cause genuine pain and heartache.  But I do believe that where one such door closes, another opens (and perhaps more than one), with hope and blessings in other areas of our lives that we might not have discovered otherwise."  President Hunter then went on to state, "We are not always wise enough or experienced enough to judge adequately all of the possible entries and exits.  The mansion that God prepares for each of his beloved children may have only certain hallways and banisters, special carpets and curtains that he would have us pass on our way to possess it. . . . Our detours and disappointments are the straight and narrow path to Him."

Inspiring though it was, at the time, this was not the talk or the counsel that I wanted to receive.  I didn't want to hear about doors closing, and I didn't want to think about other doors opening.  This was the thing that I had prepared for and wanted for years, and now it was over.  But time and experience proved two things: 1) It was a blessing that that door had closed on me, no matter how much I had wanted it to remain open; and 2) Other doors--better doors for me--did indeed open, providing new opportunities and blessings.  Teaching seminary is a wonderful profession, and I look upon those teachers I had in high school as trusted mentors who helped me to discover important talents, a burning testimony, and an abiding love for the word of God.  But I don't know that I ever could have been truly happy teaching seminary.  My personality and teaching style were always more accustomed to a collegiate audience.  My love of research and history required a collegiate audience. I did not see the opened doors immediately, but in time I did find opportunities for added study and growth under the tutelage of trusted mentors and advisors, as well as in the company of friends whom I would never have met if the door to seminary teaching had not been closed.  In the past ten years, I have had so many opportunities for growth and learning, opportunities that it would have been tragic to have missed out upon.  And so, while it took time, I came to understand the great importance of closing doors.

In many ways, 2014 was another year of closing doors for me.  And like 2004, I found the closing of these doors to be an immensely difficult experience--indeed, the pain I felt at the closing of these doors far outstripped the pain of ten years earlier.  Perhaps I can be forgiven if I admit that during the fall and early winter of 2014, in some moments, I felt as if the Lord had forsaken me.  My world had once again come crashing down, and I wasn't sure that any other opened door could ever possibly make up for the one that He had closed.  I'm ashamed to admit that I was, in those moments, the epitome of one of little faith.  But as I sit here this Sunday afternoon, I am beginning to see that once again that "where one door closes, another will be opened," even if it takes us some time to see which doors are beginning to open.

This past Monday, I received word that one of these promised doors had opened.  Through the Lord's goodness, I received a one year appointment as an intern with the Joseph Smith Papers Project, a position that will provide me with added skills and opportunities, as well as networking, good pay, and time in which to complete my dissertation.  I'm incredibly grateful for this blessing, and anxious for the opportunity to spend more time researching the Prophet of the Restoration!

And so today, I find myself again grateful for the truth that "where one door closes, another will be opened."  Difficult as it is to see some of the doors in our lives close, I am grateful for a God who knows me better than I know myself, and who knows which blessings I stand in need of in order that I might grow.

Brett