A chance to breathe on the pages of this journal. Isn’t that how God made us? He wants us to spiritually breathe even in the midst of the hardness of life. I’m taken back to those scary moments when our oldest daughter struggled to breathe physically.
Gina and I were told Kayla had the diagnosis of Asthma when she was in the 3rd grade. Her persistent pneumonia led to that discovery. When she was still living at home before college, marriage, and becoming a mother, every now and again my wife had to give her a breathing treatment. The world seemed to stop during those medical scares and rescues.
The Asthma worsened when she got a cold or after playing outside for long periods. Her breathing treatments involved placing a mask over her nose and mouth so that Albuterol would distribute to the lungs.
And now our five-year old granddaughter Charlotte, Kayla’s daughter, has Asthma. I remember last year in the summer of 2025 taking Charlotte to ride the children’s zipline at the Little Debbie Park in Collegedale, Tennessee one particular Saturday. After exerting herself, my wife discerned that Charlotte needed a breathing treatment. And as always, my wife was prepared as she had placed one in our Honda Pilot.
And although I don’t have Asthma, I have anxiety sometimes and need a spiritual breathing treatment cause life is hard and it never stops being hard.
There are the metrics I have to meet weekly at work. God, you gave me a new job at New York Life while I was on vacation in Charleston, South Carolina in July of 2022, so please give me the mental strength to do it well. If it is your will, or if You so desire, please bless my hard work and give me success.
Then there is my ongoing physical pain in my right arm and shoulder which originated after I used just my right arm to lift my wife’s heavy red luggage off of the baggage claim conveyor belt at the Seattle, Washington airport before we began an Alaskan cruise.
God, I have spent over twenty-five years reviewing medical records or disability claims for four different companies and I’m afraid I have a rotator cuff tear. God, please lessen my pain. If it is your will, or if You so desire, please keep an Orthopedic surgeon’s knife away from my arm and shoulder. Please heal me through physical therapy.
Every breath I breathe comes from you God. And I can let life in all of its disappointments suffocate me or I can breathe.
God, to not pray to You is to not breathe, trust or even thrive. To keep following the path You are leading me on I need spiritual oxygen which helps me lean into You and also helps me put one foot in front of the other–instead of giving up.
And this time here in the secret place is where You expand my spiritual lungs as I first empty myself on the pages of this journal. It’s like a breathing treatment! And God I need another spiritual breathing treatment so please speak to me through a devotional and Your Word.
From Paul Tripp’s Everyday Gospel: “Whether it is the power to judge sin or the power to breathe life into those who are spiritually dead, granting them forgiveness forever, God has the power to do whatever he announces or promises he will do. Don’t let your heart doubt his power. His power, coupled with his grace, is your hope.” (pg. 297)
From Jeremiah 51:17 “Every man is senseless and without knowledge; every goldsmith is shamed by his idols. His images are a fraud; they have no breath in them.” (NIV)
