Jesus is inspired most when to simply breathe is courage

Whenever I need to feel grateful, whenever I am lacking thankfulness in my life, I know I don’t have far to go. I turn, I repent, I face those for whom just breathing is courage. You know who you are.

I know it is a relatively easy exercise to get the reminders I need to look at life the way my life truly is. I do think back to times when life was horrendously hard—and I hope someone reads this whose life is horrendously hard right now. It won’t last, even if it feels like it’s been forever already.

Know that I admire the way you breathe! — the way you keep going when life is so incredibly hard.

Whenever I’m feeling sorry for myself, I look to those for whom the simple task of breathing is courage.

Those who are bearing moments or entire seasons of inner panic, where anxiety ravages, where the mind cavorts with disaster, and the heart doesn’t know present from fear.

Those who are caring for those who have special needs; who are being driven from burned out day to the next; who not only face incredible odds every conscious second, who are otherwise dogged in the little sleep they do get, but are faced with systems and bureaucracies that sometimes seem bent on breaking them; and who may face the reality of an ambiguous loss that means their child will never achieve what their deepest dream desires.

Those who have special needs, and who face stigma, uncertainty, discrimination and exploitation, whose parents and loved ones face a never-ending fear of them being taken advantage of, or, hazard to say, breathing their last.

Those for whom grief is the present-day forecast. Grief impending, where confusion of spirit is the current bearing, or grief in actuality, where there’s no going back.

Those for whom trauma has interrupted an otherwise joyous life plan. Where there is a sense of regret for what can never again be changed.

Those who are derailed by anxiety. Those cast deep in the grip of a depression. Those whose every waking moment is terror, for breath, when breathing is hard. There are such times. I’ve had them. And looking back I know this to be true. At these times, when the horror of life is too hard to bear, I know that Jesus is inspired by the courage people have simply to bear the existential tear.

Those for whom the simple task of breathing is courage. Where the dilemma of breathing is courage. Where respiration is the resignation of an existential obedience to God. Where the grace given is a grace received.

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Jesus, a man who spent as much time as he could with those who were ailing, who would sit with and smile with and cry with them in a connection of heartfelt empathy, by his Spirit, is inspired by you.

As the layers of bravery are peeled forth, to sit in one’s lament, or to run the race of hope never denying one’s anguish, we can know that we know that we know, Jesus is inspired right now by faith that can have life no other way.

Jesus is inspired most by faith that must accept life as life is.