Breathe

 I once heard Nicole Braddock Bromley speak about a book she'd written entitled, Breathe. Her choice for the title came about because of the sexual abuse she had suffered as a child. She said that through much of her life she felt she had to keep quiet about what she'd endured, that she had to hold all of it in. She said that whenever these awful episodes happened to her, she would hold her breath as they took place. That's also how she lived her life as a result in the emotional, mental, and spiritual state as well. She was going through life "holding her breath." Until the day she found true healing and freedom in Jesus Christ. She discovered that now, in all these ways, "breathe" again. Her book is the story of how she came to that freedom.

As I think about her story, I wonder just how close it is to so many of ours? We may not have discovered the same type or amount of abuse and wounding that she did, but the deep hurts and trauma we have walked through have left their mark. We too may be walking through life "holding our breath." Physically, holding one's breath will result in life sustaining oxygen not reaching the brain. If allowed to go on, it will result, in the least, with serious brain damage, and at the worst, death.

To hold one's breath in our emotional, mental, and spiritual lives will bring about the same, except the damage can go unnoticed. So can the resulting death. So many among us, so many of us, walk about with these invisible, but crippling wounds. So severe may be the damage that though they may outwardly function, they are, for all intents, walking dead people. They have lived "holding their breath" for so long that they are no longer really living. They've forgotten how to breathe....if they ever knew how to begin with. They don't know that they can...breathe again....or truly breathe for the first time ever. Yet for all of them, all of us, there is hope. Hope for healing....and to breathe.

In contemplating this writing His Spirit brought to my mind John 20:21-22. Jesus, having been resurrected, is preparing to return to His Father, and has gathered His disciples to Himself. The Scripture reads shares His words to them, "Peace be with you,".....then He breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit!" There's a lot going on here theologically, but one thing I feel sure that is happening here is healing. Each of the disciples had just walked through what had to have been the most traumatic time of their life. His arrest and resulting abuse, and then, the horror of the cross....and His death...and that they had scattered from Him in the midst of it all. The emotions, thoughts, and spiritual assault they had experienced are likely beyond description. Into all of that, Jesus spoke....and breathed life and wholeness. Whatever had been before was changed when the Lord of Life breathed life and healing into them. 

How does that speak to you and me? Where in your life might you be "holding your breath?" Where are the unhealed wounds and scars in your mind and spirit? Where have you forgotten how to breathe? Where is it that you have never really known how to breathe at all? Call on Him. Invite Him to come, to breathe upon them, and upon you. Where have you, like Bromley, been holding it all in, telling no one, not even yourself? Where has your spirit, mind, and heart been terribly damaged? Where and for how long have you been, at least in some part of your life, a "dead person walking?" Here He is. Right there with you. Offering His peace, His wholeness, His healing. Will you receive Him? Will you breathe again?

Blessings,
Pastor O