New opportunities

       Not as I Will
Helen Hunt Jackson

Blindfolded and alone I stand,
With unknown threshold on each hand:
The darkness deepens as I grope -
Afraid to fear, afraid to hope;
Yet this one thing I learn to know
Each day more surely as I go,
That doors are opened, ways are made,
Burdens are lifted or are laid
By some great law unseen and still
Unfathomed purpose to fulfill,
     "Not as I will"

I was Editor of the Marshall College yearbook, The Chief Justice, in 1946. The above lines were a salute to the graduating Class, entering on a new plain of their lives. I also noted a line from Revelation: “Behold, I set before you an open door . . . “

These lines have been recalled as I have been aware of many “Open Doors” in my family these past few months. The door of heaven opened and my dear wife entered. Annie has had to choose between contract offers at both the Ashland, MT public school and the Lame Deer public school. She has chosen to stay with Lame Deer having been promised the High School Library. David writes that he has taken a new job -leaving public education in Tyler, TX and moving to Denton to work as an IT specialist with the Sally Beauty Company. He notes: ”I am happy and I am scared. I may even get used to things and start to sleep better in a few days.” His son, Chris, has been working as a baker, a task he loves, but this particular situation has not worked out so he is going back to a previous job with Starbucks. Two grandsons are graduating from high school this month and will be stepping through new doors “with unknown thresholds on each hand.” A granddaughter has just married. Kenneth has bought a Condo and enters to world of home ownership. And so it goes. Open doors. New challenges. New opportunities to fail or to succeed. May it be true in all our lives that each new day “Burdens are lifted or are laid by some great law unseen and still unfathomed purpose to fulfill.”