Breathing

I have not been photographing for a while now and just recently dug the memory card out of my camera and found a few winter pictures. This is at the home of one of my clients. I might show you his house tomorrow.



When I was a kid, I would often have a dream where I was struggling violently for breath. It was usually a drowning that I was suffering, in my dreams. I would struggle for air and soon I was panicking and would start to thrash around in my bed, and that is what saved me. Apparently I was falling asleep with my head under the covers, either because it was in the dead of winter and it was cold, or I was afraid of the dark and it just seemed safer under the blanket. As I thrashed around, I would yank the covers off of my head and draw the first sweet breath of fresh air. I remember it being so exquisite and life giving that it would waken me.
I have also experienced this in real life when I almost did drown. There was life and sweetness in reaching the surface of the lake and gulping in great breaths of oxygen.
I have felt this also, to a lesser degree, when visiting Vancouver Island where the air is fresh and oxygen rich, so obviously different from home that each breath is a reminder.
On a similar but more profound level, was the experience of being released from 4 days in the ER with a condition unknown but one that required high doses of pain killers. It was many years ago but I remember like it was yesterday. It was a sunny crisp autumn day and Lis and I went for a short walk a few hours after my release. The drugs were wearing off, I was out of the stuffy hospital, and I was alive, something I was not sure of only days before. I had a keen awareness of every breath I took, how it was drawn past my lips and down into my lungs. I was not hallucinating, but just appreciating every breath I took, and being so grateful to be alive and whole.
Our sermon this week in church was on James 1:9-11. The poor are to realise their high position and the rich to realise their low position. We who have so much, tend to not rely on God as we ought. One way to realise how dependant we are on God is to thank Him for every little thing, even the air we breathe. I have at times appreciated every breath and know that without even that most basic of needs, I am undone. If I realise that my every breath is from my maker, it certainly puts me in humble and a dependant position.