Just Breathe

I’m so glad for the longer and warmer days.

It is so much easier to cope with the stresses of life when we can breathe fresh air. I hope that you are able to get outside and just breathe. I also pray that none of us take these simple things for granted.

I was walking amongst the increasingly greener trees this week, thinking about the people I minister to, praying that they (we) would all know how precious life is, even when it is difficult. Too many people I care for at the moment are feeling overwhelmed and particularly young girls are feeling worthless.

It’s at times like this, I lean into my faith as others lean into me and I’m appreciating the Easter story more than ever, especially as I take myself off to a quiet place. Jesus would regularly take a walk when he felt overwhelmed.

The bulk of the Easter story may pass a lot of people by as we skip to egg hunts and new life, but Jesus’s birth, life, death and resurrection is a story to be savoured in its completeness, otherwise we too easily skip to the happy ending without the tragedy, missing the point and the meaning. We miss the bits of the story that resonate with our own lives of love, loss, pain and grief, choices, consequences, trials and temptations. Jesus was misunderstood and misjudged. He lost his life as a consequence. I pray we might try harder to understand each other and to accept each other just as we are.

I was reminded of this poem by writer, Becky Hemsley. It is called Breathe:

She sat at the back

and they said she was shy,

she led from the front 

and they hated her pride.

They asked her advice 

and then questioned her guidance,

they branded her loud

then were shocked by her silence.

When she shared no ambition 

they said it was sad,

so she told them her dreams 

and they said she was mad.

They told her they’d listen

then covered their ears,

and gave her a hug while 

they laughed at her fears.

And she listened to all of it 

thinking she should,

be the girl they told her to be 

best as she could.

But one day she asked 

what was best for herself,

instead of trying 

to please everyone else.

So she walked to the forest 

and stood with the trees,

she heard the wind whisper 

and dance with the leaves.

She spoke to the willow, 

the elm and the pine,

and she told them what she’d 

been told time after time.

She told them she felt 

she was never enough,

she was either too little 

or far far too much.

Too loud or too quiet, 

too fierce or too weak,

too wise or too foolish, 

too bold or too meek.

Then she found a small clearing 

surrounded by firs,

and she stopped…and she heard 

what the trees said to her.

And she sat there for hours 

not wanting to leave,

for the forest said nothing

it just let her breathe.

May you be increasingly aware of God’s presence with you and may you know how precious your life is,

Deacon Helen.