Why Are We Telling Each Other to Breathe?

The first time I remember telling someone to breathe I was following the teenage son of a friend being wheeled into the emergency room several hundred miles away from his family.

I was on staff at a camp and Wesley was playing 3 on 3 basketball. The competition was physical between the older teens, all of them 6′ and more. Wes and an opponent went up for the ball when the other guy fell down on top of Wesley’s foot. His 6′ 3 frame crumpled to the ground.

The hospital was in a nearby town. It was an agonizing ride for Wesley. He was placed on a cart to wheel him into the ER. He bent over his foot holding it in silent agony. I realized in his pain he was holding his breath and I said firmly, yet as calmly as I could, “Breathe, Wesley”.

Today we see that word on memes, mugs and T-shirts. We have it on our phones. We choose it as our word for the year. Breathe

My cousin gave me this necklace as a reminder

My cousin and I have been texting it, writing it and saying it to each other for a few years now.

Why do we have to tell each other to do something we’re already doing? We are all breathing or we wouldn’t be alive.

Just like I noticed Wesley holding his breath when he was suffering we hold our breaths in a figurative sense.

Grief cripples us and our breath becomes shallow. We are trying to hold back the pain.

A hurricane demolishes a community and the effects continue long after the rest of the country has forgotten. Our breathing becomes angry gasps.

Divorce, job loss, miscarriage, empty nest…..they take our breath away. We gulp for air to stay alive but we aren’t breathing in real life-giving breath.

And we say to ourselves and to one another, “breathe“.

To do this we have to loosen our grip around the pain.

Wesley’s pain didn’t go away until he got medical attention. Some of us might need to start with appropriate medication to help us loosen our grip on what’s holding us.

When Beki tells me to breathe I know the she means slow down. Be in the here and now. Stop thinking about the what ifs and what was and what should be. Stop thinking about the unknowns and start with slowing down my mind. When I do that my breath follows and they are in rhythm together. 

The thing I’ve learned is I have to repeat this day after day. My mind is ready to race away with anxiety and worry. When it became overwhelming I sought professional help. While that has brought some relief, it doesn’t release me from needing to create practices that will help my mind and breath find a healthy rhythm.

I often find that healthy pace in the creative process. I read, journal, spend time with people who are healthy and not afraid to remind me to breathe when they see me gasping. I have faith in a God who loves me and restores my breath.

As my son has reminded me, let people help you. It’s how God has always worked in my life – through the hearts and hands of others.

Breathe, friends. Breath in deeply and exhale peace.

“Fragile” – Handle With Care

The boxes are stacking up in our garage. It started well. Boxes of books, cd’s I’m afraid to part with (hey, vinyl came back), extra linens. We packed like items together and marked clearly on the box.

Then we had a box with a little space at the top to fill and contents are now marked “MISC”. Basically, a little of this and little more of that.

More than one box is marked FRAGILE. Pottery and glasses have been wrapped with bubble wrap. A favorite cookie jar and old mason jars are packed carefully.  

One of the boxes marked fragile will have a carefully wrapped tiny ceramic cow. My husband has glued its tail and one leg back on. It still doesn’t stand without leaning it against something. My son paid a quarter for it at a rummage sale when he was in middle school. His small act will forever be precious to me.

As we continue to sort through photos, papers, and trinkets I’m reminded at how fragile I’ve felt during this period.

For every note, recognition and photograph we’ve packed we’ve found joy and sadness in both. Happy memories of the celebrations and sadness of the years passed.

One day I’m energy-filled to get this room packed up and cleaned out and the next day I’m mourning. It’s enough to have me going down the bi-polar check off list in my head.

This is life: a mixture of strength and fragility.

This is a life well lived and well loved.

In the poetic words of Bono, “A heart that’s broken is a heart that’s open”. (Cedarwood, 2014)

When my heart feels fragile I remind myself it’s because it’s open to love and joy. Just as you can’t numb the bad without numbing the good an open heart is often a broken heart. It feels the lows as deeply as it feels the highs.

Have you read the Psalms? Read the ones attributed to King David and you will find joy and anger mingled together.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. and my place of safety 3 I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies. Psalm 18:2-3P

In Psalm 22 David starts with these words:

“My God, my God, why have you rejected me?”

This is life. One day we are praising and moments later questioning.

Some days I’ve felt like that tiny ceramic cow that can’t stand without leaning on something. Parts of me are broken and need mending.

Not every period in life has felt this fragile. For now, I’m trying to wrap the tender places with grace. I’m walking in the thin space between what was and the unknown of what is ahead. But, I am not walking alone.

God continues to make His presence known in my life with caring family and friends; with good doctors and counselors. He is my provider.

And a heart that’s broken, is a heart that’s open. Open, open.

My Faithful Companion

My husband is a dog guy. We’ve had several in our 40+ years of marriage but the last was the best. He was a young pup when we got him from the shelter. He liked to get himself around Henry’s feet as if to say “don’t leave me”. We named him Tripp because he couldn’t walk without tripping over him. As Tripp grew to over 70 pounds he remained at Henry’s side. He was his constant and faithful companion.

Over the last dozen years grief has been my faithful companion. It will leave for months or even a year at a time but it always returns.

In these 10 years or so we’ve lost all of our parents and a dear uncle. That is enough to cause the feelings of loss and sadness to come in and out of my life. Add to that realizing more and more the loss of youth and working in the unpredictable world of addiction. Actually, addiction is predictable: some will die.

It only hurts when you care and at times it seems I care too much. Of course that’s not true but those I love, I love deeply. The family I’ve lost have all left lasting imprints on my life.

The ones we’ve lost to addiction are the most painful, yet, where I guard my heart the most.

I’ve been public with my grief in hopes it’s helpful to those who are struggling or just haven’t found their voice to sing the chorus of lament.

I write to dispel any shame associated with sorrow or sadness.

In the church, we have a habit of celebrating death. We try to avoid the pain of loss by jubilantly celebrating their eternal life in heaven. We talk about the suffering that is no more. Yes, I believe that. But let me feel their loss. Let my soul mourn their absence. Let me express my sorrow.

Grief has also become a teacher. I’ve learned that it’s not only associated with physical death but it also arrives on the heels of change.

It’s not that I don’t like change. If I’m the one creating it I’m all for it. But imposed change like getting old(er) or moving or retirement? My faithful companion is at the door of my heart again.

Grief shows itself in different ways to each of us. For me, it looks like a combination of anxiety and depression. It often means unexpected tears for apparently no reason like a commercial. Or a fictionalized story of a family going through a hard time. It was a good book but I was bawling as if they were real people!

My anxiety also showed up with physical symptoms like lack of concentration, excessive worry, change in sleeping patterns and, at times, what felt like heart palpitations.

This was the point I realized I needed help beyond caring family and listening friends.

A quick Google search will tell you there are 7 or 5 stages of grief. I’m choosing 5 because who needs two more stages!

You’re probably familiar with them but here’s a reminder: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

I’m pretty sure I breezed through denial and went straight to anger and then completely skipped bargaining. Our lives aren’t text books. Sometimes we’ll repeat a stage and feel like we’re on a hamster wheel of grief.

Recently, I’ve sought medical help for the second time. I’m fortunate to have been directed to a psychiatrist I’m comfortable with. After consultation she’s put me on medication to help alleviate the anxiety. I’m also going to start therapy, which will be a first for me.

I think I’m moving out of the depression stage but I’m not sure if it’s because of the meds or I’m moving into acceptance. I don’t know that it matters. I do know my balance is still wobbly. I also know I’m loved, cared for and I have hope.

Hope is what I want to share. Sometimes it starts with a phone call to a doctor or a stranger writing a blog.

Yes, pain is real but so is hope.

When Grief Feels a Little Like Being Lost

Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash

The first time I felt literally lost was on a red dirt road in the middle of Arizona with my husband and two young children. If I could choose two people to be with in an emergency, my husband would be one of them. That combined with knowing the need not to alarm our children are the only things that kept me from panic. I immediately thought about the cooler of ice we had that would provide us water should we be stranded in the desert over night. Mom thinking. 

A few years ago my husband and I went hiking with some extended family. To this day the men won’t acknowledge we were lost but when you ask other hikers for directions you’re lost. It was frustrating. The map was useless as were our “smart” phones that were out of signal range in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The trail, such as it was, wasn’t marked or at the least, not marked clearly. The moderate 2-hour planned hike turned into a frustrating 3 hour search of the trail we had apparently lost.

Lost is not a good feeling. I get impatient with others. I shut down except to utter a few sharp words. 

The kind of lost I feel today is worse. I know where I am. I am not in danger of the elements. My phone has a signal. I know the landscape, the streets, the faces. I just don’t know where I’m going. I am adrift, caught in the in-between. This is the place where emotions can take you under. And they are rising up in my eyes day after day.

It would be understandable if there is no faith to tether your fears to. But what is said of one who claims a faith in a God who cares? Yes, I play that through my mind. Do I think God to be a liar? His word says he cares for me – all of me. I know the counsel that friends and scripture give. I know the songs but this lingering feeling of being without purpose and aim haunts me like looming shadows. 

I wrote those words in my journal last summer. That’s when the emotions of grief began to hit hard again.

I was in my 40’s before I realized grief could be brought on by more than death. Our life had taken an unexpected turn that had us moving from the state I’d lived in for 30 years and plopped us into a ministry that left me wondering how I would fit.

Since then, grief has often been my unwelcome companion.

There was leaving our son a long two day drive away with our next move. My father-in-law’s death. Family concerns and heart break. Then mama’s obvious memory lapses that eventually confirmed dementia. The following succession of deaths of a dear uncle, my mother-in-law and eventually mama.

It’s been a long 12 years and one that has found grief waiting at every turn.

This time it comes with the anticipation of retirement. Another surprise. Not retirement but the grief I didn’t know it would bring.

For months I was trapped with the thoughts of everything I would lose. I began to mourn the loss of place (this is home), position, the known for unknown but mostly I sensed the loss of purpose.

The tears came and I was overwhelmed with a sense of loss. The kind of loss you feel when you don’t know where you are. Like being on a dirt road with no signs in the middle of Arizona.

I journaled. I made a list of things I will miss about this place. I daydream about furnishing our retirement home and being 20 minutes away from our daughter and granddaughter. But I still feel an ache in my heart. I still wake in the middle of the night feeling a little lost.

Mostly I’m holding on to these words written by another familiar with grief:

“God was faithful before; God will be faithful now. 

We weep for that which we have that is so good. We don’t diminish how desperately we will miss it. We let ourselves feel the ache because grief is good and necessary. And mixed in with the grief is gratitude for the undeserved goodness to have the gift of this life, this place.” Gina Butz, SheLoves

Let me feel my grief and cry my tears. It’s okay, I’m okay. God was faithful before and He will be faithful now.

Tell Me a Love Story

We sat on either side of our granddaughter, her rapt attention focused on the screen in the theater. We were watching the newest Cinderella and she was captured by the story she knows so well. 

Our children liked The Princess Bride. It held a different kind of charm but its characters were endearing. There was a bit more in questioning in this tale and more humor but they are among our family’s favorite love stories.

A friend of mine has one of those love stories. She was a history teacher in Georgia, USA leading her class on a tour in France. She took a fall and needed a doctor. She and the doctor communicated after she returned to the states and within a couple of years she moved to France and married him.

Hers is the most romantic story of people I know. It’s got the “made for movie” ingredients.

Sadly, after two children and twenty years of marriage it unraveled until it came completely apart.

I know other love stories of a different kind. They are stories of a Savior who loves us when we can’t even love ourselves.

We work and move among men living in a residential rehabilitation program.  It’s a free program run by an organization that would cause many to think it’s a homeless shelter. There are no private rooms and six showers to be shared by 100 men. There are rules. They live with curfews and restrictions, a dress code and requirements to see a counselor, attend meetings and participate in work therapy. 

It doesn’t sound much like love but it is a place where love is offered and sometimes love is found.

We know this because we see the change. We see it when they start to love themselves, when they recognize grace and when they accept that God loves them no matter what.

It’s a lot to believe for all of us.

This is the real love story. Not a sappy, happy all the time imitation of love but real love that hurts and resists but never gives up.

We are learning together, these men who share little in common with me but inside we are so much the same.

We’ve been hurt by what we thought was love. We’ve discovered love has more fakes than Rolex and we’ve been duped.  Duped by parents and boyfriends and spouses and friends.

We’ve bought the movie version and every shade of gray offered and found them empty and ourselves searching for more.

Eventually, we find the only love that matters is the kind described in 1 Corinthians 13  “Love puts up with anything and everything that comes along; it trusts, hopes, and endures no matter what.”

If genuine love can be found in a facility for addicts, alcoholics and those who’ve lost their way in life, if this love that’s born from compassion can be shown in simple acts of kindness and hospitality then maybe we can know love. Maybe we can understand it’s not about feelings but actions. That honest love wants nothing in return only to be accepted and shared.

This is my love story.

“My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.”1 John 4:7-10 Message

It’s Yours Not Mine

After nights of waking at 3 AM, of going out to the couch so i won’t wake him, of laying there sleepless with the usual trick of reading to lull me back to sleep, with even that failing me, you’d think I’d learn. 

You’d think I’d learn that the thoughts that wake me and occupy my mind, you’d think I’d learn those concerns are yours not mine.

The employee issues at work, the fatal overdose that was so unexpected of one with much promise, the grief that has become a silent companion, these are your cares, your concerns your problems, not mine.

But I will take them from you. Again. And again. I will hold them tight-fisted and I will lose sleep and depression will attempt to return because I’ve got this God. Life needs another flesh and blood life to take charge and step up and do the hard things. I mean, where are you but in the shadows of our prayers? 

I know the words about giving our cares to you. But tell me, how, exactly, does that work again? Because I still see a world that is filled with hate and greed and threatening to implode. I see addiction and disease taking our young and weak. And I’m one of the weak. I am so weak.

I see death and lies and rude people who don’t even know how to say excuse me. I just don’t see you. And I need to see you, right here. Because I believe you are. 

I wonder if giving all of this stuff to you is seeing you? I meant it when I said I’m not sure how that works because I’ve been holding your stuff for a really long time. We’re in this together right? I want to help and it’s hard to realize you don’t need my help. The lines get blurry between that whole faith and works thing because I’ve got the works down pretty good.

I like the notion of your will not mine. but honestly, when do I really let it be your will?

Step One: admit that you are powerless to do the right thing and that your life is unmanageable. 

I’m not an alcoholic. Not an addict. But I’m drunk on caring for things that are out of my control. I’m enticed by control, my drug of choice. All the things in neat little rows working as they should. Life, as I would have it. 

Instead of the familiar verses about casting my cares on the Lord because he cares for me, I find my comfort in the first steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, principles built on the bible, for wayward souls like me.

Raise Your Voice

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

It was the early 70’s when my mom became a whistleblower. In her position as bookkeeper, she saw some things that she considered questionable. After a period of close inspection, she discovered her boss was complicit in the mishandling of funds. She took her complaint to the regional office.  Her boss was reassigned in another state. She lost her job. 

Years later when I was in a similar situation I went to my mom for counsel. Leave it alone, she said. Silence.

My husband has named my side of the family the Loud Family. Yes, our volume often exceeds acceptable levels but we aren’t just loud with volume. 

We are a family of women who, at times to our detriment, speak up and speak out.

There was another time when the outcome of my aunt raising her voice changed the course of events for the better.

It was early November, with an expected 6 weeks to go before giving birth to our first child, who was due at the end of December. My aunt took one look at my swollen belly and said, “You’re not going to make it to December.”  

I shared that information with my doctor. Because we gave action to our voices I was prepared for the November 18th arrival of a full term, healthy girl. 

Raising our voices seems to be the default mode in women in my family. We’ve raised them in the pulpit and the carpool. But that hasn’t been the history of women in general.

Join me on the Red Couch at SheLoves Magazine to read the rest and raise your voice in comment section. Thank you!

Living in the Now

Our daughter got a new car recently. It’s a Nissan Rogue. I’ve never noticed that particular car but now I see them all over. That’s how it happens. They’ve been there all along but once it’s pointed out we notice.

That’s how it is with being present. Have you noticed the talk about living in the moment, being present? I hear it on the morning news shows, see the articles online and come face to face with the advise from a friend who works as a counselor. 

The problem is, I’m a literal person and over thinker. That can be a tough combination. It provokes questions like, how long do we live in the now? Now asks what do I want to make for dinner which leads to thinking about later and that isn’t the now. See what I mean?

Now has me telling you I’m watching college football and forgetting about the recent holidays. Yes, I exhaust myself with this over thinking!

I understand the value of this moment. I get the importance of not living in the past or the future. But one will always lead into the other. That’s what time does. 

Time has found us living in the narrow spaces of in between then and tomorrow. We are packing up our life, or so it seems. For the first time in over 20 years we know we’ll be moving and we know where and when. When I’m packing things in boxes I’m definitely living in the now. But my thoughts quickly turn to where we might put this in the new house.

Now finds me unsettled and anxious at times. Now doesn’t offer the answers I want. But now is where I name the 5 good things. It’s where I say the prayers and remind myself to pick up the dry cleaning.

Now is when I make supper for the two of us and when I lose myself in a book.

Now isn’t scary. It’s obvious and simple. It’s routine and predictable. Now is comfortable which makes me wonder why I squirm so much in trying to figure out the future. 

The present slips quickly into the next moment and that’s the temptation that lures me. It promises control that creates expectations and both come tumbling down like a house of cards. 

So I’m working on training my focus to what’s in front of me. It’s not easy. I have years of second guessing myself and believing I can control life. I’m not sure how this living in the now is suppose to work but I’m willing to try. It starts with breathing in, ‘Yah’, and out ‘weh’….breathing in and out the name of God.

Christmas at My Age

In recent years many of my doctors have started conversations with these words: “At your age….” At your age I want you to take a baby aspirin (even though I have no family history of heart issues)At your age your teeth start to shift. At your age your eyes, your skin, your sleep…..

There is one childhood Christmas that sticks in my mind. It’s the year I asked Santa for an Easy-bake Oven.  I was 8 or 9 and the anticipation filled me with such excitement that I woke up in the middle of the night to peek into our living room to see if Santa had come. 

There is another year where I remember hearing the reports of where Santa and his sleigh were at that moment. I was a year or two younger and don’t remember the desired present but it was the excitement and anticipation of the event.

At my age, I’ve seen a lot of Christmases. Not all were happy or filled with excitement. We shift from the fables and presents and getting and think more about preparing and giving. We try to figure out ways to balance all the things without losing the reason we celebrate.

At my age I want the kind of Christmases where I still experience the wonder of the season. I want to be filled with the glory the angels sang about and know the joy of giving. 

At my age I want to hold dearly in my heart the memories of those we’ve lost while I hold the joy of their eternal peace and wholeness. 

I want to deck the halls and smile at the twinkling lights, to line our shelves with the Santa’s collected over the years, to celebrate the remnants of our past and the hope of our future.

At my age, I want to remember that Christ is being born every day, over and over in our life when we cling to his hope and peace and share his joy and love. 

Merry Christmas

Where Is This Prince of Peace?

Our second Advent focuses on peace. Hope was an easier one to write about. Hope is what we cling to and give. It’s our message, our mission statement. But I’m wrestling with getting a grip on peace.

It sounds so simple and makes for a nice song. But what do we tell those in our care about peace? What do we tell people whose lives have been marred by drama and conflict? What do we tell our own children who practice active shooter drills in school? Peace isn’t the same as quiet or calm. It’s not merely the absence of war or conflict. Though that often seems to be our main objective.

How do we put in concrete terms and practice something that seems as hard to grasp as air?

If only it were as simple as saying Step 1 or accepting Jesus as Savior. It is and it isn’t. 

Saying, “We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable” does bring a measure of peace as does accepting Jesus as our higher power, our Savior, our redeemer. But then ….us. Our messy lives are still here. Old patterns lurk about and the habits of gossip, lying, and negativity are as destructive as any chemical. None of them harbor peace.

The children of Israel were hungry for peace. They’d spent years as captive slaves, then wandered in the desert and even in their homeland there was no assurance of peace. Where was the promise of the Messiah, the one Isaiah called the Prince of Peace?

When this promised king was born the heavens lit up with an angelic choir. A star brighter than any other guided the way for curious scholars. But even then fear, not peace, ruled. King Herod believed this prophecy of a new King and ordered all boys under age two to be killed. Violence not peace ruled the day.

 
Dissension between people groups continued. While Jesus calmed the waters by saying “peace be still” he riled the religious leaders by healing on the sabbath and eating with thieves. What kind of peace is this?

I was in high school during the Viet Nam war. I remember watching the beginnings of the Gulf War on television. We all can cite exactly where we were when the planes flew into the twin towers. 

Social media has only ramped up the cycle of friction as people go to war with words. Our own president can’t seem to find restraint. There is no calm, no quiet. There is no peace.

This has been the verse that restores my soul when the world is too loud. It can seem too abstract at times as I’d prefer peace to be something we can feel externally, not just within. 

But it turns out that, much like hope, peace is how we choose to live. 

“Be aware that a time is coming when you will be scattered like seeds. You will return to your own way, and I will be left alone. But I will not be alone, because the Father will be with Me. I have told you these things so that you will be whole and at peace. In this world, you will be plagued with times of trouble, but you need not fear; I have triumphed over this corrupt world order.” John 16:32-33 VOICE

Where is this Prince of Peace?