🌲 Exhale: Take a breath.

Prayers for breathing through what you carry.

Our bodies remember what our brains want to forget. I know: We all know that at this point. But still, when it happens—when we step into a hospital, and our hearts start racing and our faces begin to flush—it can take us by surprise.

My daughter was on life support for nearly a month when she was three. (I’ve written about this in To Light Their Way and Every Season Sacred.) She’s eight now and much healthier and stronger than she was then.

But this week, she got a cold, and then the cold got a little worse. I felt those little pangs of anxiety when her cough became more persistent, so I made an appointment with the doctor just to get her checked out.

Between four kids, we’ve been to hospitals and clinics dozens (hundreds?) of times. But in that little room, with the “crocodile” pulse ox clamped onto her little finger, I felt it.

My heart beating stronger, faster. My breaths shorter, quicker.

She wasn’t cooperating with the nurse. She’s small and squirmy. I tried to hold her down as I held my breath.

“We’re having a hard time getting a read,” the nurse told me.

My heart dropped. In an instant, my anxious brain made one billion leaps.

“Ope, there we go,” the nurse said. “It was at 95 and climbing before she moved; we lost the read. We’re good!”

The doctor came in and listened to my little girl’s lungs, examined her ears, and checked her throat. Everything was fine. Good, even. “The cough sounds worse than it is,” the doctor promised me. Still, we tested her for both variants of the flu, as well as Covid. Negative.

I felt my body begin to relax.

I finally exhaled.

Inhale, Exhale

Are you holding your breath? Sometimes, I do this without realizing it.

While working on my new book, I’ve been studying the science of breath.

“Breath is a direct pathway to our autonomic nervous system, making it both a regulating resource and an activator of our survival states,” writes Deb Dana in her book Anchored.

When I was at the clinic, I was panicking. Even though Eliza was okay, my brain went offline, and my body was out of whack.

When we feel activated, one of the most powerful things we can do is pay attention to our breath.

As Dana says, “Even the act of simply noticing the breath slows and deepens it a bit.”

Pay attention to your breath right now. What happened just before you opened this email? What’s happening around you now? How might that be affecting how your body is breathing?

Breath is so interesting because it’s part of the autonomic nervous system — which means we can inhale and exhale without thinking about it. What’s wild is that we can take control of our breath, too — intentionally changing how we breathe in and out and regulating our nervous system all the while.

Breath Prayer

I call these weekly emails part of the “Year of Breath” series because I hope they act as an offering to slow down, extending an exhale and helping you breathe through the wilds of life.

Each week, in this private community and extended newsletter, we journey through a handful of breath prayers, reflect on a weekly playlist, have a shared phone lockscreen, and engage in some guided reflection questions. This group gets special giveaways and will have private chances to speak into my new book.

I'm offering a fall discount if you’ve been on the fence. If you sign up before October 31, you’ll get 30 percent off your first year! As always, if money prohibits you from entering, please reach out — scholarships are available. (And if you have a little extra, becoming a founding member helps make these free offerings possible.)

It’d mean a ton if you’d join us! To all our “Year of Breath” members: Thank you. It’s an honor to journey alongside you in this way.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

Guest Liturgies

When I wrote To Light Their Way, I wanted to interview parents from different backgrounds and perspectives to honor experiences I hadn’t had when writing prayers.

This same sentiment is why I’ve opened the doors to guest liturgies. I’m honored to edit these words and extend a little online hospitality this way. When we borrow each other’s words, we’re better for it.

This week’s guest liturgies at @liturgiesforparents include:

• A Prayer for God’s Nearness by Kreg Yingst, the artist behind @psalmprayers, shares a prayer for comfort, justice, and rest. He carves portraits of saints, mystics, and justice-seekers like Teresa of Ávila, Howard Thurman, and Fannie Lou Hamer. His art helps us experience prayer in a whole new way through visio divina—or “sacred seeing.” This ancient Christian practice invites us to meditate on works of art as a way of drawing closer to God and finding meaning beyond words.
  
  His brand new book, “Everything Could Be a Prayer,” is a collection of more than 100 block prints paired with scripture, reflections, and prayers—inviting us to see, reflect, and act. Through his prints, we encounter figures like St. Francis, who guides us toward confronting fear and Rosa Parks, who points us toward justice. Each portrait leads us to reflect on the virtues these people of faith embodied and invites us to connect with God through the beauty of art and prayer.
  

• A Prayer for Talking to Our Kids About Sex by Dr.

  Camden Morgante
  , licensed psychologist, mom, and author of the newly released “Recovering from Purity Culture.” Her prayer reminds us that what can seem like hard conversations are holy ground—and encourages us to guide our kids with a faith rooted in love, truth, and connection.

  If you’re in the process of unlearning the shame and fear from the messages you grew up with, Dr. Camden’s words will help you move toward healing and equip you to approach your kids’ questions with curiosity and connection. This prayer invites us to imagine a future for our kids where they rest in their identity as beloved image-bearers.

I’ve finally worked through the giant backlog of submissions, and I’ll be taking a little breather myself from the editing (I have a new book to write, after all!), but feel free to reach out if there are voices you’d like to hear. This is an ecumenical endeavor and it’s been encouraging to me to get to steward these offerings from the body of Christ.

Borrow this Prayer

O God of mystery, hear our prayer.

Comfort us in our doubts.

Give us peace when we don't know what comes next.

We know our lives are but a vapor, but we also know that in the mist, You are there.

Help us to live into the mystery of a life of faith.

Let us embrace the beauty in the unknowing.

Give our family the courage to admit what we do not know and faith to trust You with our questions.

In our wondering and in our wandering, we believe in what we cannot see.

Amen.

from Every Season Sacred: Reflections, Prayers, and Invitations to Nourish Your Soul and Nurture Your Family throughout the Year

Breath Prayer

Breathe in. Breathe out. Here you are, held by a love that fills every inhale and exhale.

When life feels tangled, and your heart is anxious this week, may these simple words help you reconnect with the One who gives each breath.