The scared and the sacred.

Welcome to your liminal space.

I had a nightmare last night.

It involved my wife. I won’t go into details, but it literally woke me up in the middle of the night. It was one of those dreams that was disorienting. You’ve had those, right? Where it seems so real that you start reciting things you know to be true to try and ground yourself and convince yourself that the pictures you just saw in your mind aren’t true. The beliefs that the dream created are false. And that reality is here, now, not in whatever you just spent God-knows-how-long dreaming about.

It was one of those kind of dreams.

And as if that wasn’t odd enough, what I’m about to tell you is just as weird.

After I came to and grounded myself in reality, I finally went back to sleep. However, I was awoken again. I’m not sure if it was two minutes later or two hours later. But my eyes shot open and a phrase came to mind. Over and over again, it repeated in my head.

“The difference between ‘scared’ and ‘sacred’ is only two letters.”

What the heck?

“The difference between ‘scared’ and ‘sacred’ is only two letters.”

What is this about?

“The difference between ‘scared’ and ‘sacred’ is only two letters.”

That was it. I went back to sleep.

When I got up for good, I began meditating on that phrase. I took the two words and wrote them out in my journal. Sure enough, all you have to do is swap the “a” and the “c” in “scared” and you get “sacred.”

A picture of what I journaled this morning. Once I did, I wrote out the title to this post in the same area. That happens a lot.

I focused on that idea this morning. I’m still focusing on it, actually. But as I prayed and journaled about it, I want to share with you what I’ve gotten so far. And it has to do with the idea of “liminal spaces.”

Have you heard of “liminal spaces” before? I heard of them at some point, but I couldn’t tell you what it means off the top of my head. But as I meditated on “scared” and “sacred” I was drawn to the idea of liminal spaces. So I Googled it.

And wow:

Liminal space is the uncertain transition between where you've been and where you're going physically, emotionally, or metaphorically. To be in a liminal space means to be on the precipice of something new but not quite there yet. The word "liminal" comes from the Latin word “limen,” which means threshold.

Liminal spaces can be physical (like a hallway or an airport), emotional (like a divorce or the death of a loved one), or metaphorical (the space between two ideas that you’re caught between, or two seasons of life).

I’m holding back tears writing this right now. Why? Because I’ve been in a liminal space this last year. In more ways than one. I’m in the space between being an alcoholic and being whatever God is molding me into. I was someone with a consulting business, now I’m in full-tim seminary with no idea what’s going to come from that. My wife was perfectly healthy 18ish months ago, and now she struggles as the result of a car accident and the future is unknown.

Caught. Between two things. I’m in the liminal space.

And guess what: I’m scared. More often than I’d like to admit, I’m scared. I’m at peace, yes. I trust, yes. But peace and fear aren’t mutually exclusive. That may not make sense to you, but it makes absolute sense to me. Because it’s my reality.

And yet…

This is where the phrase that woke me up comes in. As I was meditating on liminal spaces—my liminal spaces—I realized something: they are both scary and sacred. These transition periods, these unknowns, bring fear. But that fear is not the end. It doesn’t have the final say. No, instead what I’ve learned is that the fear brings me close to God because it forces me to him. And in that sense, then, the liminal space becomes sacred.

Friend, in our liminal spaces—the scary in-betweens—God has promised to be there. He is there. I’ve met him there. And he’s turned my “scared” into “sacred.” He’s switched the letters. He’s shifted my perspective. Ever so slightly. And yet it’s made a huge difference.

I don’t know what liminal space you’re in right now. But I know it can be scary. Oh, I know. But I want to remind you that God is there. He’s real and alive and he shows up. And he’s turning your scared into sacred.

He’s good like that.