It is the time of year when we have the tendency to tell ourselves that we don’t even have time to take a breath. Do you find yourself feeling that way?

If so, take a moment and just breathe.

Do you have an app on your phone that teaches you to breathe? Years ago, we would have laughed at such a question, but now, I find that I actually use an app on my phone to help me take deep breaths when I am feeling anxious, stressed or overwhelmed. We live in interesting times when you think about how we depend on our devices to remind us to

just breathe.

Thoughts about:

breath

breTH

noun

the air taken into or expelled from the lungs

The scriptures speak to us of breath. I find it interesting that when Job was feeling that his life had no hope, he spoke about breath.

He said,

Remember that my life is like a breath;

my eye will never again see good.

Job 7:7

In his depression, breath reminded him of the brevity of life.

The Psalmist uses the word breath as a metaphor to illustrate this same truth about life.

Man is like a breath;

His days like a passing shadow.

Psalm 144:4

Breathing. It’s pretty important.

It is after all what keeps us alive.

I don’t think I ever really thought about breathing until I was about to give birth the first time. That is when I was first taught about rhythmic breathing. I was told to breathe through the labor pains. That seemed like such a weird concept to me at the time, but soon I learned that what the nurses were telling me was right. Breathing through the pain helped me move through the pain and allowed me to work with my body instead of against it as it began the process of giving birth to another human being.

Oh, the miracle of it all.

My breathing was helping to bring breath to another human being.

Breath.

I had the blessing of watching all of my five children take the first breath of life.

Again, oh, the miracle of it all.

In the last few days of my father’s life, as he struggled to breath through the effects of congestive heart failure, I had the blessing of holding my father’s hand and saying,

“Breathe in.”

“Breathe out.”

My therapist once told me that she noted that I was

holding my breath.

When I wanted to just get through something that was painful, or when I was stressed, or anxious, or worried, she said she noticed I was holding my breath and pushing through the hardness of it all.

Do you do that?

She was right. I was holding my breath when I just wanted to get through something. When I wanted to just get that thing behind me, I would barely even breathe. When I was not relaxed and taking life as it comes, I was not practicing that which would give me life:

breathing deeply.

Shallow breathing was keeping me alive, but it was not giving me any quality of life.

I was what I did not want to be:

stressed,

anxious,

overwhelmed.

My therapist was not alone in noting my breathing patterns.

My GI doctor told me that when the body is not breathing easily in deep sleep at night, my breathing was out of balance.

When adrenaline is pumped up,

one's body goes into 

fight or flight

response.

When one sleeps deeply and well, one's body is able to 

rest and digest.

These two bodily responses to life need to be in balance for good GI health.

Breath gives life.

Just breathe.

Take the time to breathe deeply and live the moment you are in more fully. Slowing down, pacing yourself, and being in the moment may actually give you more clarity about what you are doing and why you are doing it as you move through this holiday season.

Jesus came to give us life.

Let’s not let this season when we celebrate His coming

suck the life out of us.

Just breathe.

Did you know that the second to last verse of the last psalm in the Bible speaks about breath?

Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord.

Psalm 150:6

Just breathe,

and while you are at it,

Praise the Lord!