A Door that’s Painted Red

The church I have called home for the last two years is called Red Door. Here’s what that name means to me:

There she goes.
Wandering again.
Tired, weak and
hoping.

She is looking for something,
But cannot put a name to it.
All she knows is that she desperately needs it.
That she cannot live without it.

The road has become her home.
The road is like a poem,
she wrote many years ago
and forgot to finish.

Travelers, like her, know about the road.
They know its dangers.
How it whispers to the weary with
words that mean anything but rest.

* * * * * *

Perhaps then, Heaven is an entryway.
A place of unconditional welcome.
Of shelter and of solace.
A door that’s painted red.

* * * * *

After months of traveling,
Her body is giving way.
She is worn and battered.
Bloodied and bruised.

But up ahead, she can see such a door.
While her legs ache, she cannot
help but run. While she thinks of her past,
she cannot help but hope.

There it is! The symbol of passover.
A hue that the angel of death saw
and kept moving. The very color
that means “refuge from death!”

She falls to her knees, weeping.
She now knows the name she was missing.
What she was desperately needing.
She knows who painted the door red.