Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Breathing in and breathing out...

My wonderful husband (WH) had an interesting night. He had a sleep over and someone hooked him up to a bunch of machines, in a strange bed, and expected him to just go to sleep. It was odd for both of us. For me because he wasn't home, he wasn't in bed with me, and I couldn't hear his breathing. The house felt hollow, empty, missing an integral part of what makes our house a home.

It was odd for him because he was hooked to a machine, in a strange place, with different noises, a different feel, and a different bed. But eventually he was able to sleep, and we discovered that indeed, he does have issues with his breathing when he sleeps. He doesn't do it right. LOL.

Have you thought about your breathing? When God created Adam,

7 the LORD God formed the man [a] from the dust of the ground
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man
became a living being.

The breath of life. Our breath. It is essential, just like our heartbeat, the sunrise, or tomorrow, which we all take for granted. Until it breaks, until we have pain, until it's not there we do not even notice it.

Breathing impacts everything. You have to breathe and the way you do it is important. Taking short, shallow breaths will put strain on your heart and lungs; deplete the body of oxygen and doesn't rid the body of the toxins as effectively. This causes us to become tired, sluggish, unable to perform at our best, and could cause permanent damage to our heart and even death.

With my wonderful husband (WH) he had become frustrated because he was always tired, didn't feel up to doing anything, and when he would sleep he was not getting good sleep, his body did not have a chance to heal, to rest, and to recharge. But this morning, about 1:00, someone who knew how to fix this, to help him, walked into his room and gave him a tool that would force his body to accept the oxygen, force his lungs to open and enable his body to heal.

I talked with him at 5:30, and his voice sounded different, richer, and more . He said that the sleep that he did get from 1:00 until 5:00 seemed a lot deeper and that while he was somewhat tired it wasn’t the same as what he had been feeling. His body had a chance to rest, it was not struggling for what it needed, his body could relax and stop working so hard just to sustain itself and actually heal, renew, recharge. I am so excited about the difference this is going to make in our life.

But then it hit me. (Isn’t it cool how God does that?)

Breathing is to my body what Praying is to my soul. Look back up at the 4th and 5th paragraph, now replace breath with prayer. (Isn’t God cool???)

Praying impacts everything. We take God for granted until He is not there, or we stop communicating with him (praying). Check your breathing today. Are you taking deep, cleansing breaths or are you doing it wrong? Sit up straight, allow your chest to expand and think about your breathing.

Check your praying today. Are you doing it wrong? Take a deep breath and spend some time with God today. You breath without ceasing, how about making it a goal to pray without ceasing as well.

Your body will appreciate it and so will your heart if you do both, deep breath and deep prayers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Snoring, ceasing to breathe, restless tossing and turning; all things that can distract us from resting.
Work, appointments, chores, bills; all things that can distract us from time with God.

I will soon be getting a machine to help me breathe while I sleep so my body can focus on recharging my body. How much do we focus on prayer so Christ can recharge our soul? How often do we not recognize that "still small voice" because our relationship is not practiced enough to know it?

(WH)