When I started this blog to think about finding wide open space and grace in transition, I had no idea that God would call me quickly and distinctly into a big transition and liminal space. Sometimes life works out in funny ways.

Right now, we’re in transition, in-between leaving one place and making a big move – over 1000 miles – to another. My friend helping us sell this house came over recently to talk through the details of putting the house on the market. We chatted about what to fix, what to pack away, and how to fill out the stack of forms that are presently sitting on my kitchen desk. 

She left and I felt the liminality of the moment. 

Liminal spaces have been described as thin spaces where the distance between heaven and earth is, in the words of author Tracy Balzer, “tissue paper thin.” Another way to think of a liminal space are those moments in time where the past and present overlap and provide clarity. 

My kids grew up in this house. Together, we walked to school around the corner under trees full of autumn color and through the months of snow. We played games, read books, finished school projects, cried a little bit, and watched High School Musical when someone had the flu. In the spring, I cheered on the elementary school running club from my porch as they tried to run a mile around my block. We painted fingernails and toenails on the front porch, and spilled a little bit of nail polish every once in a while beside the hostas lining the porch. We planted tulips in the garden and saw the albino squirrel in our backyard. Our dogs are still keeping a sharp eye on the squirrels.

My favorite kind of house is the not-quite-perfect, but mostly clean and mostly uncluttered (except for books) variety. It sounds like home to me. 

Yes, the doors are scratched by the dogs we’ve loved. Yes, the upstairs bathtub is scratched from that time that one of the children “pretended to be a whale.” Yes, there are still a few holes to patch where the puppy discovered that she could chew the wall. Our house is that kind of house.

It is also a house where sunlight pours into the windows facing east in the morning, and then into the windows facing west in the afternoon. We decorate with sunlight and soft music around here. 

We baked a thousand loaves of bread and ate them hot out of the oven. We danced in the kitchen to 80s music and made pizza most Friday nights. One time we put pizza on the grill and got caught in a pop-up downpour. We giggled and ate soggy pizza. 

Once I hosted our Cub Scout Pack and we dissected owl pellets on my dining room table. Maybe I wouldn’t do that again. 

The Daisy Scouts made homemade Christmas cookies in my kitchen. They learned to break the eggs and measure the vanilla carefully. Oops! It was okay if a little extra vanilla spilled into the dough and onto the countertop. They took turns rolling the dough, sprinkling it with sugar, and waiting 8 long minutes until the cookies came out of the oven. 

We watched the Perseids meteor shower from the back deck. We listened to the great horned owl sitting in the top of the cottonwood tree in the corner of the backyard. 

This house hosted friends fleeing the burning Minneapolis neighborhoods in the summer of 2020. 

There were summer evenings on the back porch and fall evenings around the fire pit in the front yard. And there were lots of winter evenings by the fire in the front room. Annie, our golden retriever, rushed to curl up in the best spot by the fireplace. 

We had some arguments. We learned to practice forgiveness. We let mercy lead us through the tough spots and prayer through the watches of long nights. 

We watched our kids go to kindergarten, junior high, and then drive off to high school in my grandad’s old, white Honda Odyssey named “Bus Bus.” We packed up boxes and laundry baskets and drove them to college. 

We learned to say goodbye, learned to let ourselves cry, and learned that love doesn’t diminish with distance. 

We marveled when they brought more stuff back with them for the summer than when we dropped them off. We re-arranged closets, the attic, and the garage to accommodate the college collection. 

My aunt made all the floral arrangements and bouquets for my son’s wedding in the living room. 

We walked dogs in snow, in rain, in sunshine, in the early mornings, in the middle of the day, and as the sun set in the spring and summer. We met our neighbors and learned the names of the neighborhood dogs—Finn, Otto, Harley, and Chuck. 

I brought my mother home before she moved into memory care. We colored pictures at the dining room table. We got coffee and éclairs at our neighborhood coffee shop. Then we drove over to her new home where she lived for the last three weeks before she died. This house hugged me when I cried. 

I wrote letters, blogs, papers, and prayers at the table in the buttery yellow dining room with a candle burning beside me and a puppy asleep at my feet. 

And so, when this collection of moments from seventeen years in this house gathered in my heart, the dogs and I went for a walk in the park. I prayed with my feet and my breath. I let the light wash over me and I smiled with tears brimming in my eyes as the dogs weaved back and forth between the trees and the trail. 

In this liminal space where the past and present overlap, I could see what is true with clarity.

This imperfect house is exactly where love expanded. I am now ready to turn, full of gratitude, toward our future. I am spacious enough to hold all of these years without losing anything important.