The Breathing Room

Sooo . . . half of me is wondering why in the world I want to take up something that requires my fingers to come into contact with the keyboard any more than they already do.

I'm already a prime candidate for carpal tunnel.

Oh, well.

But I think I want to do this. Because not everything I want to say goes into the magazine I write. And because, well, a lot of what I do want to say isn't fit for the magazine I write.

So, welcome to "The Breathing Room."

“The Breathing Room” is a name that’s built on a story in Ezekiel. While God's people were in captivity in Babylon, He spoke to a man named Ezekiel. (BTW, Ezekiel, I can't wait to meet you and ask you all kinds of questions about how you heard from God—I so want to hear from Him like you did. Except for maybe the "lie on your side for six months" part.) At one point on Ezekiel's very random journey with God, God led him to a valley full of old, dry bones. And God told Ezekiel that the bones represented the people of Israel.

God's people had become old, dry, stale, stagnant, empty, and lifeless. But God had never created them for that. He had created them for life—for full, rich, vibrant, heart-alive, LIFE. So God instructed Ezekiel to speak to the bones and say: “‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to breathe into you and make you live again! I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord’” (Ezekiel 37:5-6 NLT).

It's the perfect picture of what God does over and over in me. Every time I come to God, I come just as me—with misconceptions about who He is so my view of life is off, with places where I’m believing lies and they’re making me insecure, with places where I’ve got a little view of Him and I’m scared because life seems so big, with wounds where the death of this world has killed pieces of something in me and I’m not quite free. I come to God like this—broken and bent, dead and lifeless in places, like the dry bones.

Yet in those moments, God comes fully as He is. He is full of life, of goodness, of wholeness, of truth—with not an ounce of darkness in Him. He comes with His infinite grace, His limitless patience, and His unending love. And in our time together, He breathes life into me.

I walk into these moments feeling anxious, insecure, and chained, I walk away peaceful, secure, and free. I come broken and He comes whole. I come deceived and He comes as Truth. I come in deflated, He comes full. It’s a mini-resurrection—God CPR—every single time I meet with Him.

Every.

Single.

Time.

And God has made it so that no matter what’s going on in my life, I can step into this place with Him. A place where I can exhale and relax. A place where I can shake off the burdens and expectations of life and of myself and breathe deeply. There’s room to be myself here. This place, with God—in God—is a life sigh. A breathing room.

He is my Breathing Room.

So, there you have it. This place for me will be my blog breathing room. A place where I can just be myself (hopefully—get outta here insecurity). A place where I can exhale my thoughts—even if they're not polished and magazine-ready . . . ESPECIALLY if they're not polished and magazine-ready.

And I'd be honored if you'd like to step into any part of that journey with me. :o)