What a Word Can Do
I was brought up to really value the way language shapes our lives. The names we give things, the stories we create and tell ourselves…even the words we quietly repeat in our own heads.
Yes, there is real power in the way we think about things. And what better time is there to take a look at the words and thoughts that might be subconsciously shaping the course of our lives than here at the juncture between years.
I was recently sharing with a mentor about our current state of in-betweenness, a season that has been slowly eating away at the interior determination of my soul. I oscillate between frustration and calm, but most days I land on the frustrated end of things. This season feels like we’re in a holding pattern, trying to keep our momentum from the last season, with our bags packed and our coats on, ready for the signal to jump back into it all. Alongside that, we have valid concerns that if we settled too much here, the drive to get back to the toil of the mission field would dwindle. So we have purposely been waiting, but with our shoes on and with a head full of determination.
My mentor responded with a simple reframe: “I don’t think you’re in a holding pattern, I think what you’re actually sitting in is a liminal space.”
Oh my goodness. The beginning of a major paradigm shift.
I immediately googled the word liminal, having never heard it before, and as I read, a fog slowly lifted. In one sentence, she had changed the way I saw this season, and what felt frustrating began to make sense.
You see, there is a big difference between a holding pattern and a liminal space. They both involve waiting, but the difference is in the quality and purpose of that waiting.
A holding pattern is static waiting; think of an airplane circling an airport, waiting for approval to land. It feels bureaucratic, pointless, and we naturally strive against the perceived waste of time.
“The biggest impact of a mindset shift like this is not only how we think about a thing, but ultimately how it changes our actions. ”
A liminal space, however, is a transformational space; think of a seed that has cracked through its casing but has yet to peek above the soil. It feels like there is infinite possibility, as if there is an intrinsic purpose to the waiting, regenerating us through something bigger than ourselves.
But that wasn’t the end of it. The biggest impact of a mindset shift like this is not only how we think about a thing, but ultimately how it changes our actions. And over the course of the next few days, my actions changed drastically.
For one, I loosened my mental grip on the posture I thought we needed to maintain. The focus is no longer about holding firm and remaining the same; it’s actually about transforming and growing, allowing the current season to inform and even change the next season. It means I can start making decisions that allow me to enjoy the present wholeheartedly. I mean, I’ve been enjoying the whole season here, but with a little part of me wary of enjoying it too much. Now, I’m free to settle into the joys of today and the blessings it brings.
The second thing this mindset shift allowed me to do is to stop worrying about change. If things are supposed to change, then change is not bad! Such simple math, but I hadn’t been running on that formula. It loosens my grip on what I think we should be doing and creates space for God to make any necessary changes, healing us and moulding us into a new shape capable of holding the next season.
I’ve recently been reading some work by Rev. Jonathan Best, and he describes liminality as a threshold space, often marked by uncertainty, where familiar frameworks no longer hold and new possibilities are opened. Gosh, go read that again. Thresholds have historically been spaces where things change, not just for the sake of changing, but in order to facilitate growth, become more useful, and sometimes even more valuable. These spaces and times should not be feared, they should be welcomed! However, to someone who wants the future to look exactly how they planned, thresholds or liminal spaces are scary. It was scary for me at first.
“‘Perhaps’ is the only way to say yes to the future.”
But reframing our time in New Zealand in this way means that I have to come to the full realisation that I don’t hold ultimate control, and therefore I can also let go of ultimate responsibility. How freeing! Things of this weight should never be ours to hold anyway.
So… let go, and let God. Every Christian millennial immediately cringed. But it’s true! How about we put down the control panel, and lean into the liminal. There, that’s better.
Now we have to go do it.
