A couple years ago I posted this photo on my Instagram account.

The caption read: “I will give you they keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

I had just received this key, and it opened the door to this house. God had given me a word to plant a community house in America’s greatest housing crisis, and this furnished and beautiful house practically fell in my lap – bought and paid for with the purpose of furthering God’s kingdom. I was so excited for the incredible ministry and growth that would happen with this 5-bedroom house in the years, perhaps even decades, to come.

The year that followed this picture looked nothing like I dreamed. I summarized it this way in a previous post:

The rise and fall of “The Orchard House” was one of the most painful things I’ve journeyed through in my life. Every day was a fight for glory to break like dawn. Yet the harder we pushed to move forward, the darker it became. Our house became a place of isolation and unrest, misunderstanding and pointed fingers. I kept hoping one day it would all make sense, that we’d look back at our story and laugh. But it never happened, and I was finally asked to leave after a year’s worth of painful months.

I moved my final box out of the house on Thanksgiving Day and rented a room from a friend at the bar I worked at. For weeks I could hardly get out of bed in the morning – I had never felt so defeated and confused.

Over time, I realized putting clothes on and getting out of the house was good for the soul and I started to see pieces of myself resurface after a long season of dormancy. I slowly started to heal and forgive, and realize that my soul didn’t die in that house.

But I wasn’t the same person. I became cautious and negative. I would evaluate leaders for their flaws and offered trust on a limited basis. I had experienced the annihilation of something I thought was good,  and it was a pain I did not want to experience again.

This Spring I did my 5-month missionary training in Taiwan. And this darkness within me overtook me. I would hold the teachers to impossible standards in my mind – desiring no change in my life from their words. Submitting to my outreach leader was painful and difficult, I couldn’t bring myself to trust her. Every day felt like a fight just to get to bedtime.

One morning during lecture, a pastor from San Francisco gathered us in a circle. He and his wife had been praying for each of us individually and wanted to share what they felt the Lord was telling them. Many of my classmates cried as they received their words – as if it hit the bullseye of what God was doing inside of their hearts. But my word was vague and made little sense to me. He shared a picture of a padlock and a key – one in each hand. He said I had the key and I needed to open the lock. He saw a picture of me running through a field, finally free. I prayed about it for a few days, but it still didn’t resonate and I forgot about it.

This past Sunday we had a guest speaker in church talk about the Bible passage I captioned that picture with so long ago. She called her sermon: “You’ve got the keys!”

She said: “Have you ever had the key to a door, and every single door behind that door was locked?”

It didn’t feel appropriate to stand on my chair and raise both hands, so I did an internal nod and shifted in my seat.

She shared the story of finally marrying at age 40, only to lose her husband suddenly a few years later. The week before he died he had just cleared his upcoming schedule in order to finish the book God had given him to write. And on a Tuesday night, he was gone.

“The key God has given you isn’t a doorway to perfect circumstances. The key is access to the kingdom of God within you. It is the key to know there is purpose in your suffering. The key to knowing your journey doesn’t end in darkness.”

She asked us to close our eyes and picture a room. Instantly I was brought into my bedroom at Orchard House with the white carpet and four windows. I saw my bed and the chair I spent so many mornings wrestling with the Lord in. I saw my roommate Becca and her never-ending encouragement. I went into the hallways and stopped in each bedroom and paused in the kitchen – smiling at the dozens of good memories that had taken place there. I went downstairs and reflected on what a great house this was – and what an honor it was to live there for a season. I journeyed to the front door, and stood in the majestic front entry and experienced a deep gratitude for this space and all that I learned from it. I walked out the front door, and felt a heavy weight lifted from my shoulders.

There was purpose in it, in all of it.

I had finally put the key the Lord had given me to use. Because of His goodness I was not done for – I was better for it. By the power of His Spirit I could replace all of that bitterness with gratitude – I could replace all of the dark memories with the bright ones. I could remember Orchard House with joy and not regret.

I remember telling Becca the night before I moved out that if I had known it would end this way, I would never have pursued the vision. (Well, obviously.)

How many of us can say that about something in our lives? If I had known that friend would betray me, if I had known I would lose my child, if I had known it would end in divorce…I would have never…

But God is too good to let us determine our own circumstances. And He’s too good to let us define them, too.

The keys of the Kingdom redefine defeat. They let us see tough circumstances as means, and not solely ends. The Kingdom of God within us allows us to experience extreme darkness and not be overcome by it.