Breathe Life

In a society so deeply distracted and consumed by busy, what does it look like for you to come to what you know is true and who the Lord says you are? When life feels like to much for me, two things that make sense to me are trees and Target. For the sake of this blog, I want to talk about the trees.

Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Trees ‘breathe in’ carbon dioxide and ‘breathe out’ oxygen. In every exhale, we sustain trees.

Every breath we breathe, breaths life. Every ‘breath’ trees ‘breathe’ breathes life. That’s just the nature of the relationship. Trees are firmly rooted in the soil which they’ve been planted in. The leaves are things that reside upon it. Some people feel that leaves are what make trees beautiful and without them, trees are lacking. Bare trees often direct the mind towards cold, winter, and snow. Winter is often seen as a barren season no longer providing life but I think quite the opposite. Bare trees are real, snow is white with expectancy, and the cold of winter doesn’t keep trees from breathing. Without all of leaves, the extra, grown from the tree there’s room to see for miles and miles.

We are the trees. Our leaves are the things put onto us, the extra. They’re the things we tend to hide behind. Our position, who people say we are, who we think people need us to be, and so on. Seasons of human winter strip away our leaves and make us naked and vulnerable. While vulnerability is terrifying and can leave us feeling cold without the warm comfort of our shield, vulnerability actually opens our hearts. Vulnerability is maturity.

 

Next time you’re outside, find a tree, and take a deep inhale and exhale because while your words have the power to bring death or life, your breath simply gives and receives LIFE.