Advent is a time of waiting. A time where we sink into the story, the shorter days, the feeling of nights lit only by candlelight.

It’s a time of expectation, of wondering. It can also be a time of grief as we hope for all of the things that could be but aren’t yet.

Queer and Trans people know the waiting of Advent on an intimate level.

We know what it’s like to know a truth about ourselves that we long to share but maybe can’t yet. We know what it’s like to long for families or churches to be welcoming when they aren’t. We know what it’s like to want to get married when the law says it’s still illegal. Or to want to adopt children or protect our polyamorous families.

We know what it’s like to be waiting. And wanting.

We know what it’s like to be in a liminal space; the space of the closet, the beginning stages of transition, the time between coming out and being recognized.

And we know that the liminal spaces, as much as they suck sometimes, also make us stronger, teach us to fight, and help us to be ready to stand in our truth.

This knowledge of the holiness of liminal spaces is one more way that queer and trans Christians have something to teach the church, something that the church can’t learn in the same way without us.

So let us remember our deep connection to the waiting of Advent. And let us teach the church what it means to enter into a liminal space with grace.

Photo by Greyson Joralemon