There’s a beautiful scene in The Sound of Music when a distraught Maria has just returned to her abbey after falling in love with the father of the children to whom she was a governess. Trying to make sense of her situation, she cries to her mother superior, “When God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.”

It’s a variation of a famous proverb that also goes: “When God closes a door, He opens another.” It refers to the natural ebb and flow of life that when one thing ends, another begins.

I think about this a lot as I realize that a friendship that I once enjoyed seems to be dissolving. My natural inclination is to get to work. Figure out what happened and over analyze every piece of our last conversation. I want to assess blame and establish clearly who was right and who was wrong.

But of course, I stop. And I breathe. And I remember this quote: “When God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.”

Every time someone walks out my life, they pass the next person walking in. It’s one of those universal laws, and this isn’t just for people. You can see it when someone loses a job and finds a better one. The old door closed and another one opened up to a new opportunity… most times better than the last.

When you look at life like that, it’s almost impossible to get upset over who’s leaving. They are making room for the next teacher (because, after all, everyone and everything in your life is here to teach you something).

Whatever you’ve lost today, take just a moment to grieve the loss, but then have faith and feel good. That door closed so another one could open to reveal something much better that’s waiting just for you.