Thresholds, Changing Landscapes, and Going Where We Are Called

A few years ago, after moving my son to college, I wrote a blog post about liminal spaces, transitions, and going where God calls us titled Go Where You Are Called. He has since graduated and is beginning a new chapter all his own, going where he is called once again.

His decision to change colleges and move farther away seemed like an abrupt change to many, especially in the midst of a much bigger family story that involved his dad and brain cancer. But it was a decision he discerned well. Discernment is one of his greatest strengths.

It was a time of great uncertainty for our family. We prayerfully considered and supported his decision to go where he felt God was calling him. Not everyone understood our decision. I am not sure I understood it fully at the time either. Though I felt it deep in my heart and a strong nudge from the Holy Spirit that he was msot definitely being called elsewhere.

We couldn’t possibly have known then what would happen less than a month into that semester.

Jon had a second brain surgery and suffered a stroke during surgery. Suddenly, having my son on the same campus as his older sister afforded them the gift of being together during an incredibly difficult time. They had one another as they traveled back and forth numerous times over their time there to visit their dad and navigated all that was happening within our family.

My oldest graduated about 10 days after Jon’s funeral in 2023. Looking back, I don’t know that she would have stayed through those final months if her brother hadn’t been there with her. The burden for traveling back and forth alone during the big medical events would have been too much for one person.

We couldn’t have known any of that when we helped him make the decision to go.

We simply discerned, prayed, trusted and took the next step. We surrendered to the Lord’s plan.

Only later could we see some of what God may have been doing in the details.

I couldn’t have known then just how many thresholds our family was standing upon, or all that would be waiting for us on the other side.

I returned to that original blog post again in 2023, when I moved my son back to school just a few months after my husband, Jon, died. He was moving back to school changed, a new person in so many ways. In some ways, it felt deeply painful leaving him there without his sister and now so far away.

But by then, this campus had also become something of a home away from home. The family and friendships we had built there became part of what carried both him and me through that season. There were people there who knew our story, who knew and loved him, and who showed up for us in ways I don’t think I could have anticipated when we first discerned that move in 2021.

We were all changed.

The kids and I were swimming in the deep waters of raw grief after losing Jon, my young husband and their father, while they were still so young themselves. We were trying to find our way.

Looking back over what I had written during those times helped me keep moving forward. That was true then and is still true now. It helped me see and remember where God was present and woven through our story.

It was during that 2023 move-in that I heard a homily that brought me back to what I had written two years earlier about thresholds and liminal spaces. I wrote another, shorter reflection afterward.

And now, a few years and a few more college move-ins later—not just his, but two kids after him—I find myself returning to those words once again after moving my youngest, my baby girl, to college. Maybe in part to better understand where we were being called in the middle of such a complicated and devastating story.

Even the landscape at Franciscan has changed so much since I first wrote that blog post in 2021. There are new buildings, new spaces, renovated and expanded sacred spaces, and views that didn’t even exist when we first arrived.

And, of course, we are different too.

Rebuilding from the inside out. Being made new. Rebuilding brick by brick, finding our way and becoming who God calls us to be.

Maybe that’s part of what has me thinking about these old words again. So much changes as we move through these thresholds and seasons of our lives.

We can return to the same places, but we cannot return to them as the same people.

There is something about old words that can meet us differently when we encounter them again from the other side of all that has happened since we first wrote them.

These met me that way. Because I know we were brought closer to God and one another through our journey.

Below are the words I wrote in 2023 when I took my son back to college after his dad passed away.

I’ve heard it said many times at Franciscan (University) that only God knows who, and the exact moment when, each student is called to be at this school, even if it is last minute.

And we were pretty last minute.

They just have to answer that call. To go wherever they are called.

During a Mass at orientation, the celebrant said that we, the Body of Christ, often believe there is a 6-foot wall of sorts between God and us.

We spend so much of our lives trying to find a way to get God’s attention through that thick 6-foot wall. Sometimes we allow doors or windows in that wall to draw ourselves closer to God. Sometimes we spend more time closing them rather than opening those doors—our hearts.

But the homilist explained that the truth is, there isn’t a wall at all.

He suggested it is more like a thin veil between God and us.

God is already there, pursuing us because He wants to be near us. His greatest desire is for us to grow closer to Him.

Just think, a thin veil between ourselves and God.

We just have to slow down, tune in, and pay attention to the promptings He places in our hearts. He does this so we may feel His presence and know He is near. Then He pulls us closer to Him.

We just have to follow the prompting.

Lifting that veil ever so slightly is where we encounter God and allow Him to transform our hearts.

It’s a liminal space.

Liminal space comes from the Latin word limen and means threshold. It is a place that separates what was from what is to come.

It is a place of transition, a new season, a state of waiting, a life before—what was—to what it will be.

This liminal space is where transformation can occur if we learn to wait and let it form and inform us.

At that threshold, the veil is where we can meet God and allow Him to transform us, even in, especially in, difficult times of waiting and transition.

Jesus always invites us to follow Him.

Yet we can only follow Him if we go where we are called.

We can’t stay where we are to follow Him.

We need to go where we are called.

We need to decide whom we will serve.

We can return to the same places, but we cannot return to them as the same people.

Heather Lebano

I find myself returning to many of my own words and reflections from the past several months and years. In doing so, they have helped reveal what we endured, what we encountered, who I was and who I am becoming—and who my kids are becoming, too. They have helped me see where the Lord was as we walked through the difficult, milestone and ordinary moments of our lives.

Coming back to the old words I wrote and that were woven into our lives then have become very much a part of the healing process for me.

And perhaps most of all, I find myself returning to the prayer I wrote at the end of that original post. I couldn’t have known then how much I would need these words myself.

May you be open to transformation found in the liminal space.

May you have the courage to go when and where you are called.

May you know what you have to let go of and who you are called to serve.

May you know who you are and whose you are.

May you always remember you are fiercely loved.

May you know you were created for such a time as this.

May you always know peace and the good.

Pax et Bonum

Maybe that is one of the meaningful lessons of these thresholds and life transitions. Loving someone also means allowing them to keep becoming who God created them to be, even when their becoming requires something of us, too.

We spend so much of our lives loving, holding and preparing the people entrusted to us, only to discover that love eventually asks us to loosen our grip and trust them to the life God is calling them toward.

Having just moved in my youngest this past weekend, there is more I want to share about what it has meant to launch our kids into the world after losing their dad, and the gift of knowing he once walked this campus, too.

That is a story for another day, one I hope to share soon.

If these words meet you in a season of change, transition, letting go or discerning where God may be calling you next, perhaps the original reflection I wrote in 2021 will speak to you, too.

There is so much more of our story held within those words. The storms we walked through, and literally drove through on our way to the school as we made a last-minute change. Reading them again all these years later, especially now as I have sent two more kids to the same school since I first wrote them, has reminded me that sometimes we don’t recognize what God was doing in a particular season until we have lived our way to the other side of it.

Maybe that, too, is part of the liminal space. We cross a threshold without knowing exactly what waits on the other side. We simply discern, trust and take the next step. And sometimes, years later, we are given the grace to look back and see a little more clearly.

You can find the original essay that inspired this reflection here …Go Where You Are Called

This particular reflection is also available on Substack, where I’m beginning to share some of my writing and inviting readers to follow along there, too.