Breath of Life

The Spirit of God has made me,
And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.  Job 33:4

Abby just called for me.  It's 9:46 p.m. and I heard the little "eeehh" on the monitor that tells me she's uncomfortable.  I walked to her room, just as I do several times every night and turned the little body she can't turn herself.  I surrounded her with pillows to keep her in place for a while, looked up and saw the fan going. 

I laid my head on the pillow with my girls' and pressed my forehead to hers.  I stayed for a few moments, just being close to her while she was drifting off to sleep.  So often I lay with her, for her, because she needs someone near.  I surprised myself for feeling such a strong pull to be close to her for me. 

I was thinking of how I had turned her; of the way this 12 year old girl felt in my arms---then she exhaled as I inhaled.  I breathed her air.  Her sleepy breath, a mix of strawberry toothpaste and milk.  My lungs filled with air that had just a moment ago been life to my child.  Breath of life.  As I held her breath in my body, I was instantly filled with the desire to breathe back into her a new life.  How I wished that I could lie so intimately close to her and breathe into her what I hadn't been able to provide in my womb.  Air, oxygen that would open her world to possibility.  I exhaled, knowing that yet again, I couldn't give her a life that I so strongly desired for her.

Then I thought of God as he breathed life into Adam.  The same intimate exchange I had shared with my own child.  I thought of God creating the world, looking around and knowing it was good.  Adam, formed by dust, and God, his creator, leaning close to His son and breathing in life, possibility, love, trust, you, me. 

I thought of the air of a living God breathing into me.  The sometimes lifeless, broken me.  I wonder, as I am created in his image; does he press his head close to mine, when I am unaware?  Does he step into my heart as it needs turning?  Does he look at what is broken in me the way I look at my broken child and want new life for me?  Does he exhale and know that I won't get out of the way so that He can fill me with all of Him, with life I so desperately seek? 

The breath of the Almighty gives me life.  Try to imagine the same God that breathed life into every living being, standing by, waiting, wishing you would pull Him in every part of you.  The breath of the Almighty in every cell, nourishing and renewing. 

Dear Father in Heaven, may I learn to breathe it in daily, completely, and as sweetly as my Abby.