Just Breathe

Today’s Pearls of Promise devotion is provided by guest blogger Macey Hart:

I wanted to share with you the message that I learned today–to always remember to “Just Breathe” even when life gets you down.

My pulmonary doctor prescribed pulmonary rehabilitation for me, which means going to the hospital twice a week for the next 4-6 weeks and meeting with a pulmonary therapist. With my asthma, I only have 50% lung capacity unless I use my rescue inhaler that brings me up to 75% lung capacity. Needless to say, I don’t breathe easy like most people do.

Today was my first day of rehab and I did not do very well on the evaluation. The more exertion I did, the more my oxygen level went down.

Apparently somehow through life, I slowly stopped breathing correctly through the stress of “winter seasons”(or unhappy times) of life. This past year, with the grief and sorrow of losing mother and daddy, my breathing got worse.

Today, God also revealed why I have had neck muscle tension problems for several years that get worse when I am stressed–I have been using my neck and chest muscles to breathe instead of my diaphragm!

I am going to have to try to re-learn how to breathe as well as attempt to increase my lung capacity. I am hoping that rehab will give me much more oxygen and energy for life.

Over the past few months I have been praying for God to heal me, so I can have more energy to do the things I need to do in life.

In answer to my prayers, God sent me to a Bible study at my church. The study is called There is a Season by Laurie Cole. He wants to teach me that you should never let the unhappy times in life get you so down that you stop breathing correctly! He wants me to learn how to be content in every season of life.

Even in the stressful winters of life, I need to “Just Breathe” so that I will not adversely affect my health.

Many anxious people hold their breath. They are not even aware they do this.  This is an unconscious reaction to anxiety.  Learn to become conscious of this tendency to hold your breath. Each time this is discovered, release your breath slowly and practice slow, abdominal breathing, at least for a breath or two to break the cycle of anxiety controlling your breath.

God’s word tell us in Philippians 4:6,7: Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

In addition to our own efforts to improve our breathing, it is most important to turn our breathing over to God.  God is the one who determines how many breaths we will take in this life so it makes sense that he can enable us to breathe easier. God wants us to give our worries to him and “Just Breathe!”  Macey Hart