Holding My Breath

Hello, friends! Happy Fall. All that rain finally left and, momentarily, took the hottest heat with it. So nice to be able to take a deep breath outdoors!

I have been thinking about breathing lately. Waiting for school to start always feels like holding my breath underwater. I know the relief is there, but I can’t feel it, until suddenly there it is! And then the running around panting starts and doesn’t let up until Christmas is over.

Anyway, that’s not why I have been thinking about breathing. Over the summer I did a lot of painting. I’m not very good at it, but I’m trying to get better, and I noticed that I get a much steadier line next to the trim if I hold my breath.

Now, when there is painting happening at my house, it usually indicates a time of transition. We have historically either just moved or are about to move. We are buying a house or listing a house or moving furniture to accommodate a new baby or a growing-up baby. The household is in an uproar, more so I mean than the usual clamor.

We are not one of those families where one person makes all the decisions on wall color no matter how much I have hoped that we would be. So if someone is finally painting that means that we are at the end of some major, ahem, discussions.

Discussions of this nature are also strained by the circumstances surrounding whatever life change we have just undertaken. New cities mean new churches and schools and jobs. Uncertainty prevails and patience is low. Conversations about paint become deeply personal, filled with hidden meaning. One person will feel like their breath has been wasted on whatever input the other person didn’t follow. The silences between the discussions are often syncopated by deep sighs or exasperated huffs. All of these things take up oxygen.

When I noticed that holding my breath made my painted line go smoother it hit me that holding my breath might make all the paint color negotiations, and therefore the life transitions, go more smoothly too. I wondered whether the Bible might say something about breathing being related to speech. Because, you know, maybe it didn’t, and then I could go back to sighing until I got my way.

Alas, the Bible did have much to say on the subject of breathing, and it was a bit more serious than I was prepared for.

I found several references to God blasting people with the Breath of His nostrils. Or clearing ground with his hot breath. So first of all, yikes. It did not in any place that I could find mention anyone besides God doing this which indicates to me that it’s not okay for people to use breath as a rebuke. Or it’s only okay if you’re holy already, which definitely leaves me out. So much for blasting people with my hot breath over the color of the laundry room.

Also dismaying was how closely linked the words for breath and breathing are to the same meaning as what we would think of as our spirit or soul. It’s the essence of you that goes when you die and leaves behind your lifeless body. I’ll spare you the Hebrew words if you’ll check out the following verses:

Psalm 33:6, 104:29-30 (God’s breath or spirit lives in us.)

Psalm 135:17, Jeremiah 10:14 (Nothing we create holds any spirit or breath.)

Isaiah 42:5, Ezekiel 37:1-14, Daniel 5:23 (God gives the breath of life. The Ezekiel passage is especially vivid. The Daniel one especially humbling.)

Psalm 146:4, Ecclesiastes 3:19 (The breath He gives us is temporary.)

Let’s just say that whenever I look for simple little self-betterment texts in the Bible, it almost always reveals the pridefulness of my nature. In other words, in connecting my breath to my speech I was thinking too shallow and too small.

My breath indicates a connection to my Maker. It is the essence of His life in me; it’s the tangible presence of His creative force. Each time. Ponder that for a minute. Each breath is His gift. Just because I have one breath today does not mean that another will follow tomorrow.

Having read these, I just want to be much more careful how I dole them out. With each breath am I giving life or laying waste? Do I create or destroy? Am I giving relief and refreshment or something different?