The 5-year anniversary of a big ending in my life is coming up at the end of the month. My dad and I were co-owners of a Sylvan Learning Center in Hutchinson, KS.  I loved what I did.

Sylvan Learning Center gave me a chance to use all of my gifts and talents in exactly the way that made me excited to go to work every day.

I even thought of Sylvan and my time in Hutchinson as my Promised Land (read more about that here).

But it came to an end.

2 years after Ron and I were married I was still living part-time on the farm and part-time in Hutchinson (they were 90 miles apart) in order to keep the business going.  Enrollment had been dwindling and things had been changing with the business for a while.  But at the end of the Summer in 2011 all but 14 of my students stopped their programs.  There was no way to keep the doors open.

I had been sensing change was coming for a while but as usual God had to make it impossible for me to ignore Him in order for me to give up and jump on board with the change.  It was time to move on.

I’m so thankful God’s hand was obviously in the midst of it all. 

In 6 short weeks, my house was sold, all the assets of the business were gone.  Everything else was all packed up and moved to the farm.

It was the end of being a small business owner (for a while), the end of being my very own boss, the end of a dream I didn’t even know that I had.

As I have said so many times before God is good.  Just taking the time to look to Him we will see His provision. Though my certificate was expired since I never thought would teach again, I was able to walk into a part-time teaching job in October.

I was blessed with a great environment and a bunch of kids I fell in love with.

I was able to teach while I completed my coach training and here I am today.  A small business owner again loving my job, feeling blessed and called to my work.

That’s the thing about life, there are endings, they are natural, even if we don’t feel they are.  I’m sure there are some of you, like me, that fight endings with all you got.

Dr. Henry Cloud’s book Necessary Endings * has been a great read for me.  It states that “when we fail to end things well, we are destined to repeat the mistakes that keep us from moving on.”(p12)  Not ending well will often lead us to make choices that bring us to the same places again and again.

Not learning our lessons or dealing with endings will set us up to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Learning how to do endings well and how to process the experience allows us to move beyond patterns that can keep us stuck.  Moving forward allows us to embrace what’s next.

I have Ecclesiastes 3:1 on the wall in our bedroom to remind me of how God created this world to have endings.  “To everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under the heavens.”

We have to learn to realize that somethings are only for that time, only in that season are we meant to stay there.  When it’s time for an end, it’s time for a new season, not the end of everything just the end of that season.

So if you are facing an ending today, face it with the Lord.  He can give you a new purpose, He can help you see what is next. 

If you need help building a new dream or even learning to like this new season, coaching can help.  I would love to talk with you about coaching.       Contact Me .

How do you face endings?  I would love to hear about an ending that has you stuck or moving into new blessing!