Thresholds…how this word jumped from my kitchen dishwasher to my blog. As I’m putting my dishes away, I notice on the bottom of our bowls the word Threshold with a key as the image. As if the key was going to unlock something magical in my life. If this word had a voice, it said to me…look up my definition and talk about me to others. When I try to define what I think the word means, several examples come to mind. I think of the threshold that holds women down as the glass ceiling. I think of the threshold of pain, and how your heart becomes hard like stone to protect itself, and I think of being carried by my husband over the threshold after our wedding. How can one word have so many different meanings?
After looking up the definition, the word Threshold does carry many different meanings. For starters, the glass ceiling was the first thing I thought of when I saw the word threshold, and then the visual of breaking through the glass as you climb up the ladder. The difference as you climb the ladder is not how much manual fleshy effort you use, how many people you climb over as you keep climbing, or how you’ll do anything to get the to top. This is how the majority of people break the threshold. If you dig really deep, and have a reason for why you’re doing what you do, then the climb becomes a climb for others. My climb started with a strong desire to be home for my family. I so desperately wanted to be home like my Mom to cook for my family, to be there if they needed me during the challenging times, and to be present in their lives. I wanted to do something that allowed me to be flexible, but be present for my family. That was my number one driver. As women, it is difficult to “have it all” in today’s world. That is exactly what you can have if you let someone else do the climbing for you. If you come upon a roadblock, then find another way, or wait for a new way to open. If you find yourself climbing while trying to carry heavy boulders on your shoulders, then you will only be squashed by all the weight. If you keep roadblocking again and again, review your motives. Are they pure, are they for the greater good? If so, the way will open as you climb. You don’t have to see the top of the ladder as you climb up to the sky and through the white puffy clouds. Just look at the next step, and put one foot in front of the other as you climb, one day at a time, to your divine life purpose.
Your heart can become hard, but if you remember to forgive someone up to seventy times seven like in Matthew 18:22, then your heart can become a new heart, with a new spirit, and your heart of stone can turn into a heart of flesh again. We as people need to continue to forgive, and remind ourselves of our forgiveness. We need to strive to be the best we can be in this fallen world. Finally, the image of my husband carrying me over the threshold of our home is the one that I want to close with. That image of forever is the one that I want to cherish with a peaceful smile upon my soul.
thresh·old (thrĕsh′ōld′, -hōld′)
n.
1. A piece of wood or stone placed beneath a door; a doorsill.
2. Either end of an airport runway.
3. The place or point of beginning; the outset: on the threshold of a new era.
4. The point that must be exceeded to begin producing a given effect or result or to elicit a response: a low threshold of pain.