Lauren van Vliet, author

Last night I had my final middle school program until the fall. It’s a group of students I love working with. They make me laugh, lose my voice, and want to pull my hair out – usually all in the same night. But it doesn’t change the anticipation I have when their program rolls around; I don’t know who’s more excited, the students or I.

Last night was fun, but as we came to prayer time at the end of the program, it was bittersweet. I didn’t want the students to leave, but it was time to go. Afterwards, I didn’t want to say goodnight to the volunteers, even though we had cleaned up and eaten our share of the candy. I know I’ll see them again – most of them are regular parishioners. But it won’t be the same.

Everything ends – I learned this very early. And the most bittersweet endings come when something – an event, a program, a season of my life – taught me a lot, challenged me in new ways, or was just really fun. I’ve learned that the best way is move on is to feel the bittersweet, to feel sad, and to laugh. When this is done, and there’s some distance, I can  begin to name what I learned.

This process of ending is natural. Programs end, plants and animals die, seasons change. Endings are the completion of the growing seasons, when you can step back and see the bounty that your crop has produced.

I think of trees in autumn, whole forests bright with colour, then their leaves fall. That process of leaves falling is feeling the bittersweet as the program, the event or the season of life, comes to an end, remembering the fun, and rejoicing that the work is done for now.

In places where leaves aren’t raked, they sit and eventually decompose, returning their nutrients to the ground to be reused by plants in the next growing season. This is the process of evaluating the program, but it requires time and distance. The bittersweet taste of the end needs to fade, leaving you with more objectivity for evaluating what worked and what didn’t. These insights are the nutrients that will help your ministry, your goals, or you personally, grow in the seasons to come. You know what worked, so you continue to do it, and you recognize what didn’t work, so you adjust as necessary.

And with those nutrient-insights enriching the soil, the bittersweet end helps to shape a shiny new beginning.