When the Door Closes: Is It Rejection or Redirection?
There are moments in life when a door closes so suddenly that we barely have time to understand what has happened.
For me, one of those moments came when a company I had poured my heart and soul into abruptly closed its doors.
There had been no warning.
No gradual winding down.
Suddenly, people who had depended on that income were left uncertain about what came next. I was not only thinking about myself. I was thinking about the members of my team who had trusted the path we were on and built part of their lives around it.
I was devastated.
And beneath all the practical questions was a spiritual one that was much harder to answer:
Had I misunderstood God?
I had been so sure I was walking the path He had placed before me.
Had I missed the right doorway?
Had I become so focused on what I believed was best that I could no longer recognized another direction?
Had I trusted my own understanding more than His?
That old saying came back to me:
If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.
I don’t believe God was laughing at my pain.
But I did begin to realize that I had confused my plan with His promise.
They are not always the same thing.
When a Door Closes, It Does Not Always Mean You Failed
That was one of the first things I had to understand.
The company closing was not something I had caused.
It was beyond my control.
Yet when something we have invested deeply in ends, it can be very easy to turn the loss inward.
What did I do wrong?
What should I have seen?
Why didn’t I know this was coming?
Did I misunderstand God’s direction completely?
Sometimes a closed door is the result of a choice we made.
Sometimes it isn’t.
And sometimes, when a door closes, the most important thing we can do is stop treating the ending as proof that everything that came before it was a mistake.
There were people I had helped.
Relationships I had built.
Lessons I had learned.
Skills I had gained.
None of that disappeared simply because the company did.
The door had closed.
But the years behind it still mattered.
Trusting God When the Path No Longer Makes Sense
Proverbs 3:5–6 became especially meaningful to me in thinking about seasons like this. It reminds us to trust the Lord rather than depend only on what we ourselves can understand, and to submit our way to Him. Bible Gateway
Read Proverbs 3:5–6 in the NIV
That sounds simple until the road we thought we understood disappears.
I understood the path in front of me.
I knew how to work in that world.
I knew how to lead.
I knew where I thought I was going.
Then suddenly I didn’t.
And perhaps that was part of what I still needed to learn.
Trusting God when I understand the direction is one thing.
Trusting Him when I cannot see where the road goes next is something deeper.
That kind of trust — drawing closer to God when circumstances do not make sense — is woven throughout Closer Still, where prayer, listening, perseverance and a deeper relationship with God are central to the journey.
I Had to Stop Trying to Force the Next Door Open
My instinct is usually to do something.
Find the solution.
Make a plan.
Create the next step.
There is certainly a time for action.
But there is also a time to become still enough to listen.
After the company closed, I could have rushed towards the first available replacement simply because I was uncomfortable with uncertainty.
Instead, I needed time.
Time to grieve what had ended.
Time to stop defining myself by the work I had just lost.
Time to ask what still mattered.
Time to listen with an open heart.
I began to understand that when a door closes, immediately finding another door is not always the answer.
Sometimes there is a hallway.
And sometimes we have to stand there for a while.
That waiting connects closely with something I wrote about in When God Seems Quiet: Remembering He Is Still There While We Wait. Sometimes uncertainty does not mean God is absent. It may simply mean we cannot yet see what He is doing.
When God Seems Quiet: Remembering He Is Still There While We Wait.
The Path Was Hidden in Things I Had Already Saved
The change did not arrive with a dramatic announcement.
It came through something much quieter.
I was spending time reading with my grandsons and seeing how much they loved stories.
At the same time, I came across an old binder.
Inside were ideas.
Half-written pieces.
Poetry I had started.
Fragments of stories.
Things I had once imagined writing.
Then I realized how much more had quietly survived.
With each new computer I had purchased over the years, I had transferred files from the old one.
Folders of writing.
Ideas.
Drafts.
Notes.
Pieces of a creative life that had never completely disappeared.
With every new computer, that past love of words had been preserved for the right time.
I had not been deliberately preparing for this moment.
At least, I didn’t think I had.
But there it all was.
Waiting.
Sometimes Redirection Looks Like Remembering
That discovery did something important.
It did not feel as though I was inventing a brand-new life.
It felt as though I was remembering part of myself.
I remembered The Muse Program and the joy of helping children discover stories through imagination, writing, reading and creativity. The same belief that children’s ideas matter still lives inside The Story House today.
I remembered working with my own children through their elementary school years and participating in school programs.
I remembered what it felt like to watch a child begin with I don’t know what to write and then suddenly discover a story.
And now I was watching my grandsons fall in love with stories too.
The pieces began connecting.
Not all at once.
But enough for me to wonder:
What if this is the path?
When a Door Closes, Look at What Still Remains
I think we naturally focus on what disappeared.
The job.
The opportunity.
The relationship.
The plan.
The identity we attached to it.
But what if we also ask:
What is still here?
My company was gone.
My ability to lead was not.
My experience was not.
My love of people was not.
My imagination was not.
My words were not.
The stories were certainly not.
They had been sitting in folders and binders waiting for me to notice them again.
Perhaps redirection sometimes begins there.
Not with something entirely new.
But with something God has been quietly preserving.
This was also where I had to learn to release what was beyond my control. I wrote about that struggle in What Are You Carrying That God Never Asked You to Carry? — the difference between doing what is ours to do and trying to control an outcome that belongs in God’s hands.
What Are You Carrying That God Never Asked You to Carry?
There Is a Time for Everything
Ecclesiastes 3 has long meant a great deal to me.
It begins with the reminder that there is a season for everything. Verse 8 sits within that larger picture of contrasting seasons — love and hate, war and peace — while verse 11 reminds us that God makes things beautiful in their time, even though we cannot fully see His work from beginning to end. Bible Gateway
Read Ecclesiastes 3:1–11 in the NIV
BibleProject describes Ecclesiastes as wisdom literature that confronts our lack of control over life and the mystery of things we cannot fully understand. That context makes the book especially meaningful when our carefully arranged plans suddenly change. BibleProject
Explore BibleProject’s guide to Ecclesiastes
Life contains seasons we would never choose.
There are times to build and times when something we built comes down.
Times when we know exactly what we are doing and times when we don’t.
Times when the next step is obvious and times when the only faithful thing we can do is wait.
We cannot always see the whole pattern while we are living inside it.
Maybe the Closed Door Wasn’t the Whole Story
For a while, the company closing felt like the story.
It wasn’t.
It was a chapter.
That distinction matters.
A divorce can feel like the end of a story too. I know something about that as well.
Yet my own life eventually led me to the husband I have today.
That does not make the pain of an earlier ending insignificant.
It simply reminds me that we cannot always judge the whole story from the page we are currently standing on.
The same was true professionally.
I thought I had lost my path.
In time, I realized I was being drawn back towards one that had been quietly present for years.
Words.
Drawings
Stories.
Children.
Imagination.
Faith.
Family.
Eventually those pieces would become part of The Story House.
God Can Direct Steps We Cannot Yet See
Psalm 37:23–24 gives us a picture of God making our steps firm and holding us even when we stumble. Bible Gateway
Read Psalm 37:23–24 in the NIV
I find comfort in the fact that Scripture does not say we never stumble.
We do.
We misread things.
We make decisions with incomplete information.
We sometimes become convinced that our way must be the way.
But God is not limited by our inability to see ten steps ahead.
Sometimes we do not recognise the right path until we have walked far enough to look back.
Redirection Does Not Make the Earlier Season Meaningless
This is another lesson I have had to learn.
When God redirects us, we can be tempted to look back and think:
Then all those years were wasted.
I don’t believe that.
What I learned in business still serves me.
How to listen.
How to communicate.
How to mentor.
How to build relationships.
How to recognise what people need.
How to keep going when something is difficult.
Those things did not belong only to one company.
They came with me.
And now they influence my books, my business writing, The Story House and the way I connect with readers.
Sometimes the skills we develop in one season are being prepared for use in another.
We simply don’t know it yet.
Becoming Still Enough to Hear
This is perhaps the part I would tell someone facing a closed door today.
Do not assume that you have to know immediately what comes next.
There is great pressure in our world to replace one thing quickly with another.
A new job.
A new plan.
A new identity.
A new goal.
But sometimes we need enough quiet to hear what has been there all along.
Isaiah 30:21 gives a beautiful picture of guidance: whether turning one way or the other, God’s people are told of a voice directing them towards the way they should walk. Bible Gateway
I don’t think direction always arrives as an audible answer.
Sometimes it comes through repeated nudges.
A forgotten passion.
An old binder.
A child’s enthusiasm.
A memory of work that once brought you joy.
A feeling that keeps returning.
A door that feels peaceful rather than forced.
The challenge is becoming still enough to notice.
Rejection or Redirection?
So how do we know?
Sometimes we don’t.
At least not immediately.
I would be cautious about declaring that every disappointment is God closing a door.
Businesses close.
People make choices.
Circumstances change.
Life happens.
But I do believe we can bring those endings to God and ask:
What now?
Not simply:
How do I force the old door open again?
But:
What are You asking me to notice? What remains? What have You already placed in my hands? Where is there peace? What kind of work brings life back into me? What have I been overlooking because I was so focused on the path I expected?
Those questions helped me far more than endlessly asking why the company had closed.
The Road Back to My First Creative Love
In time, the answer became clearer.
My first creative love had always been words.
They had never really left. Looking back, I could see that I had been using my love of words throughout my business life too. I was never comfortable simply “selling” to people. I preferred storytelling — listening to people, understanding what mattered to them, and helping them see how something could genuinely fit into their lives. In many ways, the storyteller in me had been there all along.
I had simply travelled through other seasons.
The Muse Program had shown me the joy of helping children discover imagination.
My own children had taught me about reading, learning and finding different ways into stories.
My grandsons reminded me what it looked like to love a story simply because it carried you somewhere.
And those forgotten folders reminded me that I had been writing all along.
The road back was not really a road backwards.
It was a road towards something that had been waiting for its season.
That same belief now lives in the Imagination & Story Growing Resources at The Story House, where memories, questions, everyday moments and imagination are treated as genuine beginnings for stories. The Imagination Series
The Story House Was Not the Plan I Had Written Down
If someone had asked me years earlier exactly where everything was leading, I doubt I would have described The Story House as it exists today.
That is part of the wonder of it.
The books.
The Faith & Reflection Room.
The children’s stories.
The family histories.
The imagination resources.
The business writing.
From My Kitchen.
All of these different parts of my life eventually found a place under one roof.
The story behind how those pieces came together is part of About The Story House. The Story House itself grew from many seasons of family, faith, creativity, writing and experience rather than from one perfectly mapped-out plan.
Perhaps that is what I now understand differently about purpose.
Purpose is not always one job title.
It is not always one company.
It is not always one straight road.
Sometimes it is a thread God carries through many seasons until we finally recognize it.
A Closed Door Can Become an Invitation
I would never tell someone in the middle of loss to simply be grateful because something better is coming.
Sometimes that kind of encouragement arrives far too quickly.
A closed door can hurt.
There may be real financial consequences.
Real grief.
Real fear.
Real uncertainty.
We should be allowed to acknowledge that.
But eventually, perhaps we can ask another question:
What might this ending be making room for?
Not because every loss was deliberately sent to teach us something.
But because God can still work within the loss.
He can redirect.
Restore.
Reuse.
Remind.
And sometimes return us to something we loved long before we knew it might become part of our purpose.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a closed door mean God is redirecting me?
Not necessarily. Sometimes circumstances change for very human reasons. I think the better response is to bring the situation to God, remain open and ask what faithful next step is available rather than assuming we immediately understand why the door closed.
How do I know if I am following God’s direction?
For me, it involves prayer, Scripture, stillness, wise reflection and paying attention to what continues to draw my heart without forcing an outcome. Proverbs 3:5–6 reminds me not to rely solely on my own understanding. Bible Gateway
What if I thought I was already following God’s plan?
That was one of my own questions. I have come to believe that being redirected does not automatically mean the earlier path was wrong. A season can have purpose even when it eventually ends.
Should I immediately look for another opportunity when a door closes?
Sometimes action is necessary, especially when finances or family responsibilities are involved. But emotionally and spiritually, I think there can also be value in giving ourselves enough space to listen rather than grabbing the first available replacement simply because uncertainty is uncomfortable.
Can an old passion become part of a new purpose?
It certainly did for me. My return to writing/illustrating grew from things that had been part of my life for years: The Muse Program, working with children, stories preserved on old computers and eventually reading with my grandsons.
Maybe the Door Wasn’t Where the Story Ended
There was a time when the company closing felt like everything had stopped.
Looking back, I see it differently.
The door closed.
I waited.
I questioned.
I listened.
And eventually I found myself surrounded by words again.
Old words.
New words.
Stories for children.
Stories about family.
Stories about faith.
Ideas that had been quietly carried from one computer to another until I was ready to see them for what they were.
A beginning.
Ecclesiastes reminds me that life has seasons.
Some we welcome.
Some we would gladly skip.
But we do not always know what God is weaving together while we are standing in the middle of one.
So if a door has closed in front of you, perhaps you do not need to know today exactly where the next one is.
Become still.
Look at what remains.
Listen with an open heart.
And trust that the road may not have ended at all.
It may simply be turning towards something you could not see before.
If you would like to continue exploring faith, Scripture and the ways God meets us through the changing seasons of life, you are welcome in the Faith & Reflection Room at The Story House.
Debbie 💛
Canadian Author/Illustrator
Founder of The Story House
