Stubborn Garage Door
August 12, 2026
Recognizing God
Last Wednesday, as I walked into our garage and pushed the button for the garage door to open, I was frustrated to find out the door would only open about twelve inches and then would close. After going through the same scenario about eight times, I finally pulled the lever attached to the garage opening chain, which is designed to allow a person to open the door manually, without using the electric lifting mechanism. Much to my surprise, I could not budge the door even twelve inches.
It was around 5:30 in the morning, so I reluctantly went back into the house, woke up my wife, and asked her if she could help me force the door open so we could get the cars out. We reattached the latch to the opening chain, and then my wife pressed the opener. When the garage door came to the 12-inch mark, I forced it to continue to open with my limited, old man’s strength. I was finally able to fully open the door and then move the two cars out.
Upon returning home after morning Mass, I called the garage door company. They immediately diagnosed the problem as a broken garage door spring. Within several hours the company came, replaced the broken spring, and everything turned back to normal.
The moral of this story is that, sometimes, we need to figure out what is wrong before we can fix what we do not understand. We cannot simply force an answer. (PS: AI told me afterwards that one should not force a door open with a broken spring, as it might cause an injury.)
Similarly, in our faith journey, we should not be tempted to “shoot from the hip” an answer when we do not understand something about our faith. Our uninformed answer may lead us in a wrong direction, or worse, lead someone else to a presumed answer not grounded in Church teaching.
We need to turn to the Catechism of the Catholic Church for an answer when we cannot figure something out spiritually or when we have a question whose answer we need to find.
Perhaps we might need to ask Father Ted for his guidance. In doing so, we will not be stuck in place and will be able to travel forward as our loving Lord would want it.
By: Deacon Tom Gryzbek
