Still With Us: Hope for New BeginningsSýnishorn

I’ve always found airports fascinating. I sometimes arrive early to sit at my gate and stare at people, wondering if they're coming or going, where they're headed and why, if they have someone to pick them up when they get there. And then someone usually notices me watching, so I go back to eating my croissant.

It fascinates me that in this one place, so many stories have converged, including my own. So many people whom we may never meet, all tied together by this one place we must pass through.

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I learned that there’s a name for places like that. They’re called, “liminal spaces.” A liminal space is essentially a threshold. It’s not defined by what it is, but rather the fact that you are passing through it to go somewhere else.

Some other examples are parking lots, stairwells, hallways, empty rooms. Liminal spaces may make you feel different, unsettled, even uncomfortable--you’ve left something behind or you’re on the verge of something different. 

Liminal spaces aren't just physical locations. They can also describe a state of being, seasons of transition, loss, or unknowns. This time, between Christmas and New Year’s, is a liminal space as we mourn what did not happen this year while we look ahead with what we hope will be. 

Learning about this concept allowed me the comfort of putting words to a feeling that has lingered all year. This unsettledness has a name. And even more comforting--it has a purpose. 

Liminal spaces are, in their truest essence, opportunity manifested. They are the spaces where you clarify purpose & proceed with intention. Because whether it is an airport, an empty lot, a bare room, a loss, a move, a challenge to the way you've seen the world--you can decide where to go from here. 

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One of the saddest movies I have ever seen is The Terminal. A man named Viktor enters the United States right as a civil war breaks out in his home country, and he discovers that his passport is no longer valid as a result of the unrest. He’s trapped in the terminal of JFK, unable to enter the country but unable to leave to go back home. He is stuck in a place where no one stays, and he is forced to survive on ketchup packets and quarters from returned luggage carts. 

Perhaps why I found this movie so difficult to watch is because it mirrors the panic I feel when I am going through a transition. I cannot see the opportunity, often only focusing on the terror of not knowing what comes next and the grief of leaving something behind. But even in that airport, Viktor begins to make a home, a place for himself within that liminal space. And while it is both comedic and heartbreaking to watch, it reveals this truth:

We have a compass that is set for Home. There is something deep inside us that pushes to belong, to fill space, to grow roots, to find permanence. Ecclesiastes 3:11 testifies that God has “set eternity in the human heart.” 

This draw towards something that is not simply passing is what has turned so many liminal spaces into well-lived places--empty apartments we've turned into homes, bare walls we've decorated, strangers we've turned into friends, dark nights that we've filled with meaning. Liminal spaces draw us to the One who is unchanging. 

And though we may be in a liminal space for a season, we will not be in it forever. We will keep moving towards where we need to go, one step at a time. One step at a time, He will guide you. 

If you find yourself in a liminal space, don't panic. By its very nature, you will not be here forever. By your very nature, you will not be here forever. Take some time here, tarry awhile if you can, and allow yourself the opportunity--the space--to look up and figure out what comes next.