Defiant and Joyous

My chest is tight and breath is hard to move but move it must.  Breath cannot stay in one place. Breath is by definition an action. Breath is an in and an out. When breath stops death comes.

So in and out the breath is forced. The breath is forced as life sometimes is forced. Sometimes life is easy. Sometimes days flow with the beauty of a spring in Idaho cascading joyfully down the mountain side framed in bright green from the trees and the grass. Some days flow with the joy of a runner meeting and exceeding her goal, feet slapping the ground in a rhythm only she can hear and see.

And then there are some days-some days when the breath must be forced. Breath must be forced first through the nose and then deep into the lungs because if it was not forced deep, the breath would stay just above the lungs and do no good.  If the breath does no good, the body dies.

My chest is tight and the breath seems to hover just above my lungs. I breathe in as deep as I can, expanding my lungs all the way into my back until I can almost hear the ribs pop. I breathe as an act of defiance. I breathe as an act of worship. I will live and I will breathe and I will take joy in the day the Lord has given me, even if the day is full of pain and my chest is tight and breath is hard to move.

On the day when Jesus died, Mary’s breath did not come easy. All hope it seemed was lost to her. Her beloved child, the child of promise, the child whose birth occasioned angel decrees and visits from afar was being killed. They didn’t even have the courtesy to kill him in private. No, this death was out loud, broadcast through the neighborhood. Just like her pregnancy with the same child, this was public and her chest hurt and breath came hard and she had no choice but to stand and to breath.  Humiliated again, she stood in the crowd. Humiliated despite knowing her son was special, was beloved, was the Lord. How then would she continue to breath? Would she rush back to her home and sink in despair? A curled mass of heartbroken woman praying between sobs with none to offer her comfort.  Where were the angels now? She saw them before he came. She spoke with them and was encouraged. Where were they now and was it all just a hideous sad mistake?

Even though her chest burned, I believed she breathed. This was the woman who when told she would bear the child of God said “So be it”. She was strong enough to walk the roads with her pregnant, unwed belly. She was strong enough to obey God’s plan. She was strong enough that even in her weakest moments when she was laid out in a crumpled mass with the vision of her beloved wrapped in death, she breathed. Some days our chest is tight and breath is hard. Some days when the spirit is floating just above seemingly unwilling to enter we have to breathe deep, breathe deep and force the breath in until our ribs pop, until the hard shell that has grown around our heart breaks open.

My chest is tight and the breath is hard to move. The breath is harder to move than even my knees. My knees that refuse to bend and seek forgiveness. My head that refuses to bow because to admit my mistakes is to be weak. Then I think of Mary’s chest and the breath she took over and over again. I breathe deeper and deeper until finally the ribs pop and my knees bend and my head bows and I beg forgiveness.  And in forgiveness my breath becomes worship, my breath becomes joy just like Mary’s breath when in that moment she became light seeing her son risen again, unscarred by death. She became light when she saw that faith had been made reality.  And I, like Mary, will breathe-defiant and joyous until that day when I see faith made reality.