The Door of the Sheep

I happen to love reading and before I came on my mission I made a goal of reading all the Newbery Award Books. It was a lofty goal and unfortunately I didn't finish but I read one that will stick with me forever. It is called "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli. The story follows a young son of a knight who dreams of becoming a warrior like his father. While he father is absent the lad gets sick and although recovers most his strength back with time, his legs become mostly useless, making knighthood out of the question. Instead, he is sent to an Abby far away to learn to read and write and find a way to make a trade. The boy is bitter about his lot and fights against learning anything other than knighthood. A kind monk patiently works with him and teaches him to swim, whiddle, read, write, and even makes him crutches that allow him to get around with some mobility. Over and over again he tells the boy that hard things may put a wall in our path to what we want, but we always have the ability to make a door. He tells the boy to learn all he can so that when he meets a wall in life he will always be able to make a door in it and keep progressing forward. The book is short and I don't want to spoil the end for any intrigued readers but the story itself stuck with me because of the monk's advice to prepare for walls so that when they come we can make a door through them. There are many applications to our lives of this sound advice but I want to focus on one: the Atonement.

In the Bible Dictionary under names of Christ it lists "the door of the sheep". It is in reference to John 10:7,9. That really stuck out to me because it really puts perfectly into words who Christ is to us when we come accross our own walls or trials in life: he is the door. No matter how difficult or impossible life may seem at times we know that although we ourselves may not be able to climb over or break through them we know that if we allow Christ into our lives he will always provide a door for us. There is nothing his power cannot heal or make right and as we realize that the Atonement begins to have real power in our lives. I know that Christ lives and that he is our door if we let him and become his sheep as we prepare every day for our walls in life. So, let us like Nephi go through life and say "I will go and do" for "the Lord shall provide a way for (me) that (I) may accomplish." (1 Nephi 3:7) If we do so we will never meet a wall too high, thick, or strong for us, for Christ truly is the "door of the sheep".