Endings can be invigorating in that they show us that our
work or purpose in a place is finished; that the life lived there has reached
its end.
That’s a good thing, because it means that the purpose in arriving in a particular
place or situation in the first place has been accomplished. It means
everything that is pretty much going to happen, has happened and there’s
nothing left remaining.
It means, perhaps, that the blessing of God for the duration
of our time lived in a particular locus—be it a home, city, job, company, or career—is
complete. And that sense of irrefutable and unrelenting inner restlessness just
might be God’s tender push to nudge us on to the next thing and all that He will
accomplish there.
Endings are conflicting, rightly so.
The little “should I stay or should I go” dance that plays
out in our heart and mind is the necessary check and balance that ensures we
aren’t being impulsive out of a wrong motive.
It’s easy to cut and run when we aren’t particularly fond of
our current situation, or after we’ve been fired or let go or otherwise been
given some sort of notice that we might want to start looking elsewhere.
But endings can also be precipitated by a long run of pure
contentment and satisfaction with where we’ve been, making the ability to act
on what we know to be true--that it’s
time to move on—exceedingly gut-wrenching.
In either case, I believe it is best to not think of endings
in terms of “It’s over.”
In going through the process myself, I have found it more
beneficial, and less heartbreaking, to approach them as an ongoing: a leaving from
one manner of existence to another, taking with us all that we learned and
matured-into there. To see it as the necessary step in being able to continue
on into the next thing.
It’s not an ending so much as it is a progressing. The “old,”
the “what came before,” doesn’t remain entirely behind. It goes forth in the
person we have become while living that chapter.
Upon leaving, we are not the same as when we arrived.
copyright Barb Harwood
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