You Will Breathe Again.

You know that feeling when you used to practice holding your breath and so you’d swim all the way to the bottom of the pool, only to realize that you aren’t sure you’re gonna make it back to the surface? You start to panic because all of your oxygen is running low, but then you begin to emerge to the surface. 

When I was younger, we would spend days at the pool as a family (not my dad of course, not entirely sure that he loved the sun, I guess I’ll never know:)). I would swim back and forth under the rope made of metal rings or chains that separated the deep end from the shallow end. One day, I was practicing holding my breath, as I swam back and forth, letting my long, curly hair trail behind me like a majestic mermaid underwater. Just as I was about to come up for air, my majestic mermaid hair wrapped itself around the metal chain and locked me so much so that I couldn’t come up for air. I panicked, so naturally my movements warranted the lifeguards to blow their whistles and swoop in to try to cut me out as quickly as they could. Needless to say, that trauma ended our afternoon stay at the public pool. 

I am aware that so many are at that place in their lives right now. Personally, it has felt like we began to come up for air after a blur of a few weeks and our mermaid hair got tangled and pulled us back under only to be gasping to be handed a life preserver. This metaphor does not stop with my little family. I have been made aware of so many close people in my life who are barely.keeping.it.together. I say that in the most tender, and gracious sense of the statement because it’s the encounters I’ve had with these people that remind me over and over and over and over how deeply fragile life truly is. Leave it to someone like Kate Bowler to remind me first on a podcast about her chronic health condition with cancer that her very physical presence and existence scares people into the reality that the human condition is one that is indeed the most fragile existence. As she spoke those words I raised my hand high (mentally of course, cause I was driving) because I certainly am one of those people who is terrified by the very real reality of mortality. Perhaps it’s because I exist in my own world as someone who is terrified of expressing my own vulnerability, of really, any kind. Or maybe I’m someone who falsely believes I have none, and can push through and overfunction, even if it kills me (shout out to all my enneagram 3’s out there– don’t follow my lead). 

Another moment of life’s fragile existence came in my first class of year 2 of my training in Spiritual Direction. As people shared their experiences of the summer that is quickly fading, more than I would like shared that in a span of 3 months, they’ve had run-ins with disease, loss, mourning a job that has gone toxic, tragedy, the breaking of ties in relationships, the heartbreak of death and the ongoing sensation of suffering. 

Yet, in the same breath they would share of the tangible presence of God in their lives. They would share of the births of grandbabies, the whimsy of travel, the release of stress, and the contentment and joy that sunshine and warm weather bring. I shared about my love for the cicadas and how my now two year old toddler comes alive when he hears the “crunchy bugs” in the evening. There wasn’t more or less room for those suffering or those feeling joy or delight, there just was. It was all shared in a space that made room for the beautiful and fragile things that make us all human. In that moment, our breath returned to us in the form of community, collectively breathing in the fullness and goodness of a God whose presence resides in the fragile and beautiful things that make our lives undoubtedly whole. 

Another moment came to me sitting in the car with a new friend who was explaining to me her experiences mothering a family that she inherited through marriage. A complicated story wound up in so many past wounds she didn’t choose for herself. 

But her stamina and courage to show up for the people in her life both scared and astounded me. I fear I don’t have that kind of resilience. However, the grit she displays to me regularly, represents God’s promise of not only the full and final Resurrection but the tiny, daily risings that a life united to Christ offers us. I’m talking literally about fleeting moments amidst life’s larger fragile ones. I’m talking about the ones that allow us to grab some air really quick before being pulled under again. The smell of freshly bathed baby, or a decent night sleep, or even a quick cup of fresh coffee, or actually taking a moment to put your hand on your chest to feel yourself breathe. 

Where are you? Are you underneath the water about to emerge? Did you just get pulled back under? Do you feel like you are running out of air? 

You will breathe again. You will find moments where the grace and the goodness of God find you, they might be fleeting, but they are there.