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“Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” So the proverb goes. It’s a verse I’ve become acquainted with over the past six months of going through the process of selling and buying a house. It has been a rollercoaster. There have been sleepless nights. There have been tears. I am an impatient person who becomes anxious in the face of uncertainty and having to deal with the reality that there are things that lie beyond my control. Waiting is not a comfortable place for me. But after months of delay, deadlines missed, much deferring, issues and uncertainties, contracts have been exchanged and we will complete tomorrow. We have now reached the strange in-between period, but have not yet reached the promised land. We are living in a kind of limbo, with cardboard boxes filled with our possessions piling up around our home – ready for the new life we know is coming. Today MPs will vote on whether to extend Article 50, and the prospect of leaving the European Union may be deferred, and the wait continued. In the Christian calendar, the in-between period of Lent we are currently in reflects the idea of liminality – the concept of a threshold, a space that exists in between stages of a rite of passage; the period between adolescence and adulthood, between exchange and completion on a house purchase. Or between a referendum vote and an exit from the EU. Anthropologist Victor Turner said: “Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention and ceremonial.” The waiting of Lent – the 40 days in between Shrove Tuesday and Easter Sunday - reflects an idea foundational to Christian theology – that we live in between the now and the not-yet of Christ’s incarnation and the coming of the kingdom of God. But this is more than just the bit in the middle. For all of us, there is a choice in how we respond within the waiting; how we cope with being in the in-between. I am joining thousands of people this Lent in taking part in a project called 40acts – which is inspiring acts of kindness for each day leading up to Easter. In this period of waiting, we can choose not only to transform ourselves, but to seek to make life better for others. It is in the waiting that we grow. In the waiting for exam results that determine your next steps. In the waiting for medical tests that might give you an idea of how long you have left. In the waiting for divorce papers, or job offers or an all-important phone call. In the sacred space of waiting, may each of us cling to the hope that things will turn out alright in the end.