Sometimes the hardest part of healing isn’t learning to breathe in. It’s learning to
breathe out.
A routine visit to my pulmonologist taught me something I wasn’t expecting. Part of
my breathing difficulty wasn’t caused by my inability to inhale. It was my inability to
fully exhale. As stale air remained trapped in my lungs, it left less room for the fresh
air my body needed.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
I realized I had been living the same way.
For years I’ve been holding my breath—not physically, but emotionally.
Life has a way of teaching us to stay on guard. Responsibilities pile up. Unexpected
hardships come. We adapt. We become problem-solvers, planners, protectors,
providers. Little by little, we convince ourselves that if we loosen our grip for even a
moment, everything might fall apart.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing it was safe to exhale.
Our bodies have an incredible way of revealing what our hearts have been trying to
tell us all along.
So I’ve been asking myself a simple question:
What would it take for me to finally exhale?
Not just physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. Mentally.
I’ve realized that exhaling isn’t about having every answer. It isn’t about eliminating
uncertainty or finally reaching a place where nothing can go wrong.
It’s about releasing what I was never meant to carry.
It’s about loosening my grip on fear.
It’s about trusting God more than I trust my own ability to hold everything together.
Maybe that’s why Jesus didn’t simply invite us to work harder. He invited us to rest.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” —
Matthew 11:28
I’m still learning what that looks like. Some days I do it well. Other days I catch myself
holding my breath all over again.
But healing, I’ve discovered, isn’t always about becoming stronger. Sometimes it’s
about becoming willing to let go.
Maybe that’s what Jesus meant when He invited the weary to come to Him—not
because life would suddenly become easy, but because we were never meant to carry
it alone.
So I’ll leave you with the same question I’ve been asking myself:
What are you still holding your breath over?
And what would it look like, today, to finally exhale?
One breath at a time.
