Come breathe on me, Lord.

I grew up in a Christian-led household; my parents gave their hearts and lives to God when I was just a toddler. I have no memory of life without God in it. Maybe a bit different than some, my parents were Pentecostal, a bit strict at first, but that knot slightly loosened as I grew older. I was only allowed to listen to Christian-based music, and for the most part, I was compliant. I thank God that there was a world of music outside of the typical bluegrass-gospel or hymnal singing that you might find in church houses. Music became a bridge for my thoughts and God.

Let me take us back to 2K1, yes, I am a millennial. There’s this song that Jenifer Knapp sang called “Breathe On Me”. There are times that I obsess over this song, depending on the cycles of self-psychology.  Maybe this is because I fell in love with words and music a long time ago. Songs that paint pictures with words, strengthening emotion with melody. A good song carries the mind and body through lyrics that echo our own stories. The best part is the poetry of lyrics, the author’s unrefined thoughts shaped and groomed, with a repetitive narrative to a beat your heart would want to catch.

I tend to immerse myself in the words of various songs I hear, as God sets sail with me through life on the backs of these melodies. Over time, those melodies became markers of different seasons in my life. Recently, I took a dive back into the music of my adolescent to young adult years. This was the late 90’s to 2010 Era of contemporary Christian music. I found myself smitten with a few songs that brought nostalgia flooding into my life. I have been finding so many songs that I had forgotten about over the years as I had added secular music to my playlist in the rebellion of my later teens and early adult years.

But even before all of that, before any rebellion, before playlists, I was living within the borders of my own mind. As a young girl, I can remember experiencing life with a notebook out in my mind, and I’d record the details surrounding any moment caught in my psyche. I would write about the background noise that radiated in my observations, capturing the smells of the room, the movement of the trees, the exact color of the sky, however I could describe it. I recorded everything: the flutter in my stomach, the sweat on my palms, the weight of anxiety on my shoulders, the tightness in my throat. I would record the music of the air, and label that time in my life with a poetic stanza, and that would be the soundtrack of an era for me. I can still go back to those tracks and feel the shadows of those words, moments in time, and remember how they affected me.

Those memories didn’t exist only in my head.  I would physically write down my thoughts, words, lyrics, and stanzas. When I was alone in my room, I would take those notes and try to relay those moments painted in memory to words that expressed those colors, onto paper. Whatever the experience, I made sure to take it all in, feel it, recognize it for how my mind comprehended the thing, sometimes obsess over it, and then appreciate it with words written down on paper, realized.

When a song inspired me, I would listen on repeat, which created the perfect writing mood. I could write until my hands gave out, only to take a short break and write some more. Writing was my way of processing life. I lived inside song lyrics; they explained life to me. In this time of my life, the world was full of vivid colors, and words hummed and echoed in my ears.

“Breathe On Me” starts out with these lyrics:

No temptation's seized a man that he can't overcome

Who am I to be fallen?

Though I’m still not sure if I experienced depression as a young girl or if I was just obsessed with questioning, “Why?” and getting no straight answer. My notebooks from childhood have many questions, deep and spiritual, that I cannot imagine my children asking and being unbothered by the idea of their origin.  

Looking back now, I realize those questions didn’t come out of nowhere. I experienced trauma as a young girl, trauma that I am still working through, that I have not given words to yet. I was questioning who I was and who I was to God. I am sure these are typical questions of any person experiencing anything traumatic or distressing in life.

“Who am I to be fallen?” struck me like lightning. That line stayed with me longer than I understood. I am not sure I can convey this sort of epiphany that weighed on me as a young girl, though I can try.

In trying to make sense of that pain, I turned to what I knew: God listened. Though I thought Christian people were to be humble in life, self-loathing had to be a sin. We are to reflect on ourselves about what sin we were committing because that brought on punishment from God. We would need to correct it through repentance and prayer. That belief shaped the way I questioned myself.

I was always asking “Why?” about everything. About God. About myself. About the things I couldn’t understand. That question followed me everywhere.

Over time, that question became tied to something deeper in my faith. I know that God gave of Himself to us, His creation. His word became a man who walked where we have walked and experienced things that we have and will experience. His truth is constant, and it does not fail. But it never answered my questions directly.

I see life in that we are a world of people that was gifted a savior, so that we may be redeemed from our wicked nature and corrupt thought patterns. A people who denied obedience and rebelled to be our “own”. So, who are we to fall? Who am I to feel powerless in any situation or thought when Jesus died for my freedom?

I believe the breath of Jesus is the Holy Spirit that is talked about in the bible. I also believe that poetically, though Jesus gave up the breath from His body, it was gifted to the world as a comfort, just like He spoke about in the gospels. I believe the Holy Spirit existed before God’s word became man; it existed as His Soul and was the air He breathed, and it continues to exist today.  

And that brings me back to the song, “I come crawling, I come crawling”.

In my notebooks, I crawled to God not only with questions, but out of fear of coming up short, in hopes of a better tomorrow, and in hopes of viewing myself differently. Some days I would beg God to talk to me, to let me know that he’s nearby. I would plead with God in prayers from my bed, or in riddles from the pages of my notebooks. Sometimes those vivid colors of the world showed up as a deep blue in the shadows of my room, though sometimes those colors faded to melancholy blue or shades of grey when I questioned the reality of His or my existence. Like a prism of many colors, when the light shone from my eyes and projected onto paper, many colors appeared and paraded my life’s investigations.

Now, in my mind, when I sing “Breathe On Me”, I visualize myself with a guitar in my hands, wearing 90s grunge attire. And yes, I’m in a rock band singing to Jesus, of course. Pieces of my childhood that I never imagined would carry forward quickly caress my soul.

Many times, I wrote down the words, “Breathe On Me, Lord!”

And maybe that’s what I was searching for all along.

Jesus, breathe on me. I need that comfort.

-AB-

- I CORINTHIANS 10:13 – - JOHN 3:16 -