Breath Prayers

5/21/09 Breath Prayers
Last night as we gathered around Grandaddy’s (Larry’s dad) hospital bed, we held hands and I prayed. Tears flowed, hands were squeezed. Grandaddy smiled and mumbled thanks. Today I read, “How can I, your servant, talk with you, my lord? My strength is gone and I can hardly breathe”. (Daniel 10:17)
 I think that must be how Grandaddy felt last night. Having experienced others standing in the gap to pray when I didn’t have the strength, I understood his smile.
Trying to sleep when we got home was a different matter. I had watched Grandaddy struggling to breathe. I have known the fear that comes with being unable to breathe deeply. My mind began ticking just like the old wind up clock that was on my bedside table at 2211. That steady, continual tick-tocking; “what if-–will we,” “can he—if they don’t,” “will she—if he does,” “who can—if we don’t.” On and on the worries and fears dominated the silence of the night until they were like screams in my head. It was as if I were struggling to breathe just as I knew he was.
I had prayed God’s best for Grandaddy and all the family and yet I was living as if I had never uttered a word to the One who gives us our very breath. “Our life is but a breath.” I can trust Him for the outcome. I just needed to refocus. I began to practice the breath prayers. As I inhaled God’s word in my mind, I would exhale the scripture with my mouth. My friend Margie first shared the idea of “breath prayers”---because she did it for me while driving home from Arkansas the day of my first surgery. “I was praying for you, breathing in and breathing out….that the Bread of Life in your heart would protect you.”
This morning with the phones down at work, I was late receiving Larry’s call. The 1pm procedure to “help Grandaddy’s breathing” had been cancelled because Grandaddy had been unresponsive at around 7am. They had to take him to ICU to try and stabilize him. As I drove to the hospital, I began to “breathe” prayers of thanksgiving to the One who breathed into Grandaddy the breath of life enabling him to become a living being---father and grandfather. I acknowledged that our life is but a shadow, a mere breath and that our time on earth is short---but an eternity is spent with the One who gives Spirit and understanding. I committed his life to the One who knows the number of his days and once again asked His best for Grandaddy with heaps of mercy for him and the rest of us as well. To God be the Glory!