what is a “breathe” prayer
I think there are two aspects to a “breathe” prayer. First of all:
A“breath” prayer is a prayer that can be said in one breath.
The ancient monks often prayed, “Lord, have mercy” as their “breath” prayers. Christians often repeat the name, “Jesus”.
I have a number of phrases I use. A few of my favorites are, “Be still and know”, “He makes me lie down”, “Be anxious for nothing”.
Today I’m including, the word “Focus”.
This word was added to my repertoire a few years ago because of a situation I encountered.
Someone I know was going through a difficult time. She lost something. That’s it. She just lost something. Nothing irreplaceable, mostly annoying. But because it was sandwiched between some other situations, it seemed even worse. She let it mushroom. While it was mushrooming, she ruminated.
(Rumination is going over the same thing again and again. Unless once is determinedly seeking constructive answers, it always leads one down the path to destructive thinking.)
Finally, after ten days of berating herself, she let a couple of people in on it. I was one of those people.
At first, I wanted to laugh because it really wasn’t that big of a deal.
I listened instead.
I knew what she was doing. I knew she was doing what many of us do:
Instead of doing something constructive about it or we let it sour other parts of our life.
The word “focus” added so when I find myself in similar situations, I can have a word that puts me right back on track.
Because of the mighty outpouring of adrenaline, our emotions run out of control. We make mistakes, sometimes really big ones because we let the little ones fester. Our thoughts get all messed up.
Stress, good or bad, left to run rampant has a destructive effect on all parts of our body.
Our constant rehashing keeps the adrenaline levels elevated-not a good thing. I reassured her that her losing something wasn’t nearly as much of a problem as her thinking she had to keep it secret. She was “humiliated she had done such a thing and embarrassed to let anyone else know about it.” She kept her own stress level up by keeping it hidden. When she realized no one was judging her for it, she seemed to do better.
So what should we do on a day like that?
Focus on the fact that :
- when we need further wisdom, we will receive it.
- that we can only do what we can do and that there’s a whole lot we can’t do, like think for someone else.
- we don’t have to feel guilty above those a fore mentioned things I can’t do.
- we don’t have to buy into unnecessary drama which is the same as saying,
- we don’t have to let another person’s stress, stress us!
Maybe that’s a “breath” prayer you can pray today if you’re trying to stay above the fray. Repeat the word
Focus.
As a follower of Christ, that means we can focus on God and His faithfulness. We can inhale God’s peace and exhale the stress we are feeling.
God bless and I hope you have a good day.
(I have to add a P.S. here. Look at this font. It looks different than the rest of the post, right? Well, it was showing up where I didn’t want it to. So-o-o-o-m I went to my “text” screen and was actually able to figure it out and change it. Yea, I feel like I took another giant step in my “technical” blogging skills. Be happy for me.)
