The Door We Wait Beside

Have you ever sat waiting, staring at an ICU door?
Waiting for word from the doctor.
Waiting for permission to enter.
Waiting while the one you love is held on the other side.

I once waited fifteen hours staring at a NICU door—waiting for my preemie baby’s flight to arrive from Tennessee all the way to Texas Children’s Hospital. I sat unable to help. I sat not knowing when the door would open—or what kind of news would be waiting on the other side.

All I could do was remain on the threshold, wondering if the doors on the tiny airplane and the tiny incubator protecting my son’s tiny frame would hold up as they should. I waited, weighing whether the hospital doors would swing open with a glimmer of hope or a gust of dread.

Doors are barricades of protection, holding inside so much we cannot see. They are boundaries that bend us to our knees—to wait, to pray, and to surrender what we long to hold open and hold onto.

The Shepherd Who Becomes the Door

This image of a door helps us understand something Jesus says that may otherwise seem abstract. It is a physical object He uses to teach a spiritual truth:

“So Jesus again said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.’” — John 10:7

Jesus is telling Pharisees and other listeners—even his own disciples—that He is the one who can save them and give them access to abundant life.

Picture a shepherd lying across the threshold of an ancient sheepfold. Sheepfolds were often rugged and haphazard—piles of branches and stones stacked together, sometimes in a cave-like manner to enclose the sheep. When there was no gate, the shepherd himself became the gate, spreading across the opening and protecting the sheep from the dangers of the night.

Because the shepherd became the door, the sheep were protected—from thieves, from predators, from wandering off. Safe in the sheepfold, they were known. They found rest. They received the refuge they needed to survive.

And now we see in John 10 that Jesus is proclaiming Himself as the living gate for His people. He is the One who places Himself where His people are most vulnerable and keeps them in His care. If this is true for us too, it changes how we view the uncertain moments we face.

Jesus at the Threshold

Those NICU doors—I will never forget when they finally flung open smack dab in the middle of the night and I watched the medical flight team shepherd my baby in to receive all the care he needed. I came completely undone.

There is a heaviness we feel when we face a threshold we cannot control, like standing before a hospital door. We come to these crossroad moments that separate sickness and health, fear and hope, life and loss. And we long for help.

Jesus is our answer to this. He is our door. We may not always know the answers to the uncertainties that loom on the other side of our circumstance, but we can lay our fear at the door and rest in the mercy of His watching and keeping.

He stands at every threshold we cannot cross on our own. Jesus is our ultimate protector and provider. We must go through him to experience life at its fullest…a life everlasting.

I sometimes rewind fifteen years and think of that scared new mom in the waiting room, staring at that door knowing things were not quite right. I wonder if she would have found peace in remembering that someday she would not have to wait at the door anymore. Not because her son was here and healthy, but because of what awaits us on the day when everything will be made right.

Maybe you need to hear this today…

Every door we wait beside is a shadow of a greater gate.
And one day, when night is finished and danger is no more,
we will find no need for a closed door,
for the gates of Jerusalem are never shut.
There, all that is broken will be made whole.
Because Jesus—our Door—will be there,
shepherding us home. (Revelation 21)