So subtle
Take a deep breath if you can, but maybe your breath won't take, and that's when you have to intentional stop what you're thinking and take the breath. The harder it is to take a breath the more you'll know how much tension is in you. It's strangely true for me, at least. It helps me gauge where my heart is at a lot of the times--just a breath.
Then it calms me down.
So deep breath, and let's get to it.
To the untangling in my heart.
Sometimes it feels like I can't breathe and it's as if I'm being placed inside a hole with no way out. I feel trapped or stuck--overwhelmed by my weakness or inabilities. Sometimes this happens all of a sudden, I'll be walking somewhere and it'll just knock me off my steady gait, or I'll be in the car or at home and it'll hit me: I'm not as good as I hope to be. I'm floundering for possibilities or silver linings, but all I see is the darkness inside the hole I've suddenly fell into. Other times it happens after a big event or some big disappointment, like getting a bad grade back in college or when my ex didn't offer me his jacket when I said I was cold, but nowadays I've learned (with age) that you can still dance through disappointments and that bad things/events will happen that could benefit you by showing you a weakness. Or by opening an opportunity for you somehow. Bad events at least give me something tangible to examine and thoughtfully reconsider for future prevention or to something more excellent.
But nowadays it's so subtle.
There is hardly an event, circumstance or disappointment that comes immediately to my attention before I realize I'm in a dark hole. I'll know when it's happening because I feel as if I can't breathe. I need to take that breath but it won't take. That's when I really need to stop what I'm doing and intentionally brace myself and take a breath until it takes. Teasing out the tension is just the beginning, it's quieting the thoughts too. I'm not talking about meditation or "losing yourself" or anything spiritual like that, I mean just staying wherever you are and being okay that things have need to stop for the time being. That I have need to stop whatever I'm doing, and breathe. This usually only lasts for 5 minutes, but I'm getting better at each practice. Technically it's only necessary for when I am in need of it, like when I'm in that dark hole, otherwise why fix a good thing?
There are days and beautiful hours where life is in Christ and I am flourishing, so breathing comes naturally and nicely. Then there are days or dreadful hours that suffocate my heart and put my mind to labor as if I've been dropped into a hole outside of Christ. I'm not saying that I'm not in Christ all the time, but it can feel as if I've expected Christ to be a certain way, and when my expectations are not met I cringe at His ways. It's the posture of my hands being either open to His sovereignty or greedy to get my own way done.
So when the moment comes, I have been learning to breathe again. To take a deep breath and gauge the tension, the animosity towards what God has given me in order to tangibly examine how I'm handling His grace. How am I stewarding the circumstances, the relationships, the hours, the days, the money or the things that He gives me, and what does that say about the posture of my heart? What does it say about my belief in Jesus? What does it say about what I confess to be true about Jesus's death and resurrection?
It says a lot.
It's painfully frank.
Sometimes it is as if it, too, merely adds to the tension, but the difference is there. There is difference of recognizing the right posture from the wrong one. In other words, having the Word of truth (from the Bible) implanted in my heart as the guide or light to my life doesn't mean it only gives me good vibes and feelings, but it means that it sheds light on what's really there. The difference between this tension and the tension of ignoring the truth is that there are strains of vain labor hidden in the darkness. These dark strains of vain labor choke me in one way, while the light that reveals them only hurt me to see what's actually choking me. So it could first feel as if both do me harm, both to be in darkness and vain labor, and to realize that's what's going on and begin to get critical of myself. So taking a breath helps me relax the tension in order to silence the critic or the accuser, and humbly acknowledge what the Spirit illuminates in my heart.
Where was I going before I fell? What was I doing leading up to the fall? How am I handling what I see in the light now?
I am searched out by God, every part of me is laid bare before His light to reveal to me some things I had failed to see before.
Some painful things.
Most recently it was jealousy. I was looking at the success of others in areas I'd once dreamed of succeeding in myself (art, writing, printing, displaying) and to not have what they had (which was so beautiful and even God-glorifying) sank me into the dark. I sank away from the light because I wanted what I wanted not what I saw in the light. I wanted something else, to be someone else. Someone cleaner, kinder, more resilient, and prettier. I wanted to be someone more like-able, braver and more fearless about achieving or endeavoring to get my work out there. Yet each moment I found myself further and further from the truth as I tried placing standards on myself that belonged to an imaginary me. I stepped until I fell into the dark hole for people who work in vain at achieving life, because apart from Christ I can do nothing. I shrivel even at the first step out of God's light of truth, and it takes a painful process of coming back into it. To see what I had been doing to the message of the gospel, and what I had been saying to God by each step. That's the real me. And it's painful to see, but the truth is necessary because something deeply inherent inside of me wants to reflect the beauty and the glory of God, the highest beauty, the highest glory, and the highest praise. I might start to distort that desire by wanting those things for myself in a way that puts me in the place of God, but that's always shown as recklessly stupid. No one can usurp God, that's why He's God. Haha.
Yet I've been given Himself. He gave Himself to me, and now I have everything He has and all that He has He gives to me. And receiving everything I realize only then that it was more than just His gifts that I wanted and most needed. It was His love that satiated beyond any of His gifts. His love is what inspires me to write to read to be brave and to be fearless. His love is what saves me time and time again from the hole of my despair and forgetfulness.
I am not those people nor will I ever be or should want to be, because every good and perfect gift comes from God, and to go for the gifts above the Giver is like wanting a dollar over the universe.
So when the moment hits, take a breath, and if it won't take, stop and be intentional about demanding that it take. Gauge the tension in your heart, mind and chest through however easy or difficult it is to take a deep breath. And allow God to scoop you back into His light, painful as that process might be, it is only there that you will have Life.
In His ways, truth and light you find your feet on ground soaked with love, and the voyage with Him is heading home.
“...A stone to stumble over, and a rock to trip over. They stumble because they disobey the message; they were destined for this.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
1 Peter 2:8-9
Jmegrey
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