By: Chelsea Walls | Harvest Ministries
Every year, Florida really tries to be such a difficult child when autumn arrives. It groans about shifting into the new season, dragging it’s feet the whole way. Eventually our lovely state will finally start dropping those leaves and the cool weather comes in out of nowhere. For me, there’s just about 3 perfect days during the transition that I just adore, but I’m such a baby about the temperature and I get cold so fast, so it’s too much for me real quick. But those 3 days! They are a real joy to behold!
How funny is it that we are just so obsessed with the changing of the seasons? Just this morning, I brought in a repertoire of new fall things for my desk space. (I do spend most of my life here after all!) I put up new pretty fall themed prints & hung a wreath of reds & oranges. I found this ADORABLE mercury glass pumpkin that I’m obsessed with that now lives in the corner by my Keurig. It was a top priority that my work space reflect the new season or I just couldn’t get in the spirit! Florida may give some push back against that November weather, but I shall not.
If only we could embrace the seasons of our lives as willingly as we embrace the seasons of the year.
Why is it that we are so prone to resist the season we’re in? It’s as if we are never satisfied. When it’s summer, we want fall. When it’s winter, we want summer. When we are single, we want to be married. When we are married, we want children, and when we have children, we want them to grow up and move out. When the nest is finally empty, we miss them and want them back.
Yesterday I spoke with a friend who expressed that every-so-familiar fear of getting to the big 3-0 still checking the SINGLE box on every doctor’s office form and wedding RSVP. I met that fear with encouragement that 30 was still a long ways off, but knowing in my gut that every other day I struggle with that same worry for myself. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m in a season of waiting too.
That season of waiting is every human being’s least favorite spot to be in. It’s the place where we pray big prayers for answers and direction, when sometimes we are just meant to stay put and go with the flow. Richard Rohr describes that waiting spot as ‘liminal space’. Liminal space comes from the Latin “Limina” which means threshold or the space betwixt and between. When we reach that space between, our immediate reaction is to resist it with an urgency. To make efforts to move forward into a new season as quickly as we fell into this one. But what if moving forward doesn’t mean finding THE answer right now, but learning to live without an answer. Better yet, maybe we should be living TOWARDS an answer and taking this season to lean in towards what we don’t know. Literally leaning into God.
Romans 8:24-25 (NLT) says, “We were given this hope when we were saved. If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.” These seasons of waiting…the in-between places…are our least favorite spots to be in, but it’s here that we develop confidence in the plans of our Creator. God will consistently lead us back to this liminal space because it’s here, where we wait for things to come, that hope is found.
Recent Comments