A blessing for those between roles in the family business

“Liminality” is a word that connotes a transition between roles, stages, or phases of life: When you’ve left a station, but haven’t yet arrived with a sense of certainty about your new place or purpose.

Such transitions happen throughout one’s time in the family business. For example, liminality might describe the time when a next-generation family member first returns to the family business but isn’t sure of their role in the company, or when a person moves from working in the business to managing or leading the organization, which requires a different perspective. Or perhaps when the incapacity or death of a family member requires one to fulfill a family leadership or administrative role they haven’t yet experienced. And there is definitely a period of liminality as an older family member begins the succession process of handing the business, and their role, to a younger family member.

This blessing is for those going through a time of transition from their current role to a future role that feels yet undefined, knowing that the future requires a different contribution to the family or business than what you’ve provided in the past.

Now is the time when letting go is hard
When leaving is necessary
When life begins changing
From what was, to what will be.

The role you’ve played has oriented your life
Has given you purpose
Has reinforced your strengths
And has offered a stability easily taken for granted.

Deep down you know it is time
That to everything there is a season
For your health and spirit and happiness
You must find, and grab hold, of something new.

This liminal time is not just difficult for you, by the way
Others around you must also begin to change
Your transition is a fulcrum
Creating a necessary shift for others you work with and love.

As you acknowledge the need to move
From where you are, to where you need to be:

May you recall the many ways you’ve been a blessing to others.
May you be assured that embracing this uncertain time will indeed bear fruit.
May God bless the new contribution you will begin making to your family and business.

Behold, I am doing a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:19)

Prior blessings: A blessing for in-laws in the family business, a blessing before a meal, a blessing for a couple transitioning the family business, for those who do not return to the family business, for one who forgives others, for a long-term key employee, for the next generation’s new business venture, for a family member recovering from addiction, for a sibling partnership, for the end of a family business partnership, for grandparents in the family business, for those experiencing family estrangement, for your estate planning efforts, for a family business gathering, upon the passing of a family business member, for rest, for the next generation’s return, for the senior generation letting go, and for the new year.