Devotionals

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Breathe

By the time I got back home, I couldn’t feel my toes. I slowly pulled off my skates, peeled off my socks and sat down on the floor with my feet under the radiator. As I sat and rubbed my red toes, they slowly came back to life, accompanied by intense pain. As a young boy I hadn’t thought about the temperature, only about the fact it was Saturday morning and the sun was shining. I had decided I would skate down the river all the way to the edge of town. It was pure joy, gliding down that white ribbon of ice, listening to my skates go swish, swish, swish as the river slowly wound its way past the homes, stores and streets above. Where the river narrowed and the banks rose up on either side, the town disappeared altogether, and the ice opened up to reveal small rapids. At those spots I had to walk along the shore until the ice was solid again.

By the time I was heading back, it had clouded over, it had begun to snow, and I knew it would be dark soon. Frightened, I began skating faster, but the snow quickly increased in intensity, and at the edge of one of the rapids I was engulfed in white. I froze, and couldn’t catch my breath. Then I heard something, coming up from below my feet. It was the ever-so-soft gurgling of the river, caressing the rocks, birthing a lullaby from their stony silence. I realized at that moment I wasn’t alone - the river was with me, pulsing with life, running swiftly under the ice, and it would safely carry me home. The tenderness of that music cut through the smothering, frightening whiteness, and I relaxed, and started breathing again.

Below the iced-over rivers in our lives, underneath the nonsense, noisy chaos and tragedies of our world, God is. Right now, God is working, his Holy Spirit stirring up faith, hope and love within us, enabling us to breathe.


Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” – John 5:17

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