Re-Learning to Breathe

You’d think it’d be easy. I mean, everyone does it, needs it to live. It comes naturally from birth. How could I forget?

*Breathe In the Gold*

*Blow Out the Black*

  “The problem is, Amy, we think it’s normal because we grew up with it all around us. But it’s not.” That’s what my sister said when I called her up a couple weeks ago. That’s what I’ve reminded myself over and over since then. It’s not normal. But I can be.

  *Breathe In the Gold*

*Blow Out the Black*

  Managing was no longer enough. Going to the same gas station or Dunkin Donuts or Family Video. Having my anchors, my people I cling to in social situations if I branch out. Having “do nothing” days and saying “no” more than was socially acceptable. It wasn’t working anymore.

*Breathe In the Gold*

*Blow Out the Black*

  I was forgetting how to breathe. How to be what should just come so naturally to me. How to live. I was a zombie walking through life looking for something to sustain me ’til the next fix, but it never came.

*Breathe In the Gold*

*Blow Out the Black*

  What do you think bravery is? Keeping on doing the same thing, hoping circumstances will change or you will change or life will change? Stubbornly refusing to admit your need for something more drastic? I hope who I am is brave. What I’ve done is brave. Every step forward makes me wonder if I’m running, but I only hope it’s the right direction.

*Breathe In the Gold*

*Blow Out the Black*

  I’m trying to reconcile this all now. That God is my healer, but I’m not well. That God is my peace, but prayer and tears and crying out did not help me breathe. That God is compassionate, and I as a Christ-follower must be like Him, but I just can’t take one more person’s problems when I can’t control my own. But I’m still His. And He is still my healer. And He is still my peace. Somehow. Like this.

*Breathe In the Gold*

*Blow Out the Black*