Every year for the last five years or so I have received what is called, “my word for the year.”
Last years word was REVEAL.
I wasn’t sure at first why that word, but as the month’s moved on, it became very clear to me.
My best friend was diagnosed with a life threatening illness and I was diagnosed with early diabetes.
Major life choices and changes had to take place for both of us, revealing the necessary disciplines we both needed to get the help we needed to learn how to take care of ourselves in a better way.
It is strange how a word just fits. It became a life challenge.
Reveal – exposing what is hidden. Maybe one could even say a rude awakening?
It has been hard to hear the news about my best friend, my prayers are with her.
In reality diabetes can also be life threatening if not taken seriously.
The new word I have sensed for this year, is simple but very necessary.
It has depth of meaning on many levels.
We sat in a room one time with a man who was dying.
His labored breathing was the indicator of how soon, he would be leaving.
It’s strange how that is, what we listen for when a baby is born.
That cry, that first breath. That pours oxygen into a little soul or in the case of someone passing,
that last gasp from the lungs.
Without it we cannot live.
Without it there is no spirit connected to soul.
In Genesis 2:7 it says:[He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.]
(Reminding me of what takes place when CPR is done.)
Life…giving measures.
When Jesus was with the disciples in the New Testament, it says in John 20:22
[Then he breathed on them and said, “receive the Holy Spirit.”]
It all involved on thing. One purpose. One life giving measure.
In Daniel 10:17 we read: [‘”My strength is gone, and I can hardly breathe.”]
While we were in the room with our dear friend who was dying, we had turned the tv down to almost a mute tone while we watched the quiet screen in front of us. Then one of the ladies said, “silence”… we sat in the quiet while she counted, One, Two, Three.
Three deep gasps and then he was gone.
In Psalm 144:4 It says: [They are like a breath of air, their days are like a passing shadow.]
In the book of Job in the Old Testament, it says:
[But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.]
It was just like that. He was no more the man we remembered.
In a moment in time we saw life then we saw no life, all because of breath.
My new word of the year is breathe.