Learning

I'm learning to breathe
I'm learning to crawl
I'm finding that You and You alone can break my fall
I'm living again, awake and alive
I'm dying to breathe in these abundant skies

This past couple weeks I've had to go to two mountain parishes in a row. When you're over 7000 ft. up, you really do come to realize how important breathing is. The higher the elevation, the less oxygen there is to breathe, so the farther up the mountain you go, the harder and harder it becomes to breathe. I found myself gasping for air as we were driving from an elevation of 7415 ft to 8350 ft. As I was sitting in the back seat of the crammed '91 Toyota Corolla, this song came on the CD we were listening to. It all just kind of hit me at once how incredible these lyrics really are.

When you get higher up you really do have to teach yourself how to breathe again, so, in that sense, the farther up the mountain you are, you are learning to breathe. This posed a deep parallel to me. We often refer to our walk with God as "climbing the holy mountain" and the closer we get to the top, the harder it is to breathe, we have to learn to trust God all over again and just crawl. I just thought this was such a neat parallel, because, when you're in the mountains the skies are endless, and it is harder to breathe, and you get so wiped out so quickly you just want to crawl. This paradox is amazing, the closer we become to God, the more helpless we become, and yet, the more free we become as well, the skies become more abundant, and it's harder to breathe, but, it's so worth it.