🕊️With: Hope that holds us.

When the world burns, we live into hope one act of presence at a time.

I scrapped this week’s daft. It wasn’t what I needed—and maybe it wasn’t what you needed either. After the week we’ve moved through, I realized the ache pressing on my heart—and perhaps yours, too—is for hope. Hope that we belong to each other. Hope that goodness will triumph over evil. Hope that no fire, flood, or famine can separate us from the love of God.

In my lowest points, I’ve needed not empty platitudes or clichés wrapped in toxic positivity but someone to sit with me. To just be near to my wondering. To exist in the unknowing alongside me.

I hope this Year of Breath extends a little with-ness. Like someone sitting beside you, reminding you that it’s okay not to have all the answers. Like a hand on your shoulder when all you hold feels too heavy.

With-ness means we don’t have to carry the ache of this world alone because the One who holds creation together holds us, too.

As we receive this with-ness, we’re also invited to become witnesses of it—to show up for one another, to be a quiet presence of hope when words fall short and the world falls apart, to extend compassion in ways both seen and unseen.

We live into hope one act of presence at a time.

When Self-Protection Shields Us From Hope

Destruction and devastation are realities that we often want to avoid. It hurts to go near, to open ourselves up to the pain around us, because it often reveals the pain within us—the pain we work so hard to paper over.

Maybe we stay busy or prefer to be disconnected. Maybe we numb ourselves with social media, alcohol, or something stronger. Maybe we overfunction at work, overcommit to our schedules, or overparent at home, controlling every detail in an attempt to create a sense of safety. These are human responses to an overwhelming world. But there’s an ache that remains, isn’t there? When we allow ourselves to sit with this ache, we open the door to hope—and all the pain and comfort it brings.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on God in any way, shape, or form. I don’t have highly spiritual answers to explain away your pain or mine. But what I do have is a hope that, in a real and mysterious turn of events, we are not alone as the earth cries out. And because of this, we can live open-hearted—because it’s only when we live open to the pain that we can also be fully open to the joy in our lives, too.

What if we dared to step toward hope instead of closing ourselves off? What if we softened the barriers around our hearts, trusting that when everything falls apart, love remains?

Maybe placing our humble, feeble hope in the with-ness of God is what allows us to really show up—for ourselves, one another, and the world God so loves.

Nothing Can Separate

As we’re reminded year after year at Christmas, we’re invited into the reality that—hope against hope—we have a cosmic with-ness with the God of all things. That neither life nor death can separate us from the love of God.

Like many of you, I watched parts of President Jimmy Carter’s funeral. It was deeply rooted in Christ because, as people continued to testify, he was a man who loved Jesus and lived out his faith in word and deed. I found myself moved to tears multiple times, especially when Romans 8 was read, when his grandson spoke from his heart, and when President Ford’s son read the eulogy his father had written.

With one eye, I watched the funeral of Carter—a man whose faith was evident in his life of love and service, a man whose hope was grounded in Christ. With the other, I watched incomprehensible fires burn in LA—devastation consuming homes and lives in real-time.

How do we hold onto hope when the world feels so fragile? How do we sense God’s with-ness in the face of such loss?

God, are you avoiding me? Where are you when I need you?

Psalms 10:1, MSG

God’s With-Ness

This week, as I’ve been working on my new book, I spent a lot of time reading the Psalms in the Message translation—cries of lament, of grief, of despair. Of asking God, “Where are you? Why are you letting this happen?” And also poems of worship, of adoration, of hope. Of asking God, “Why have you been so good to me?”

The Psalms are reminders of God’s with-ness. Line by line, these prayers remind us that God is a God who is with us. Who is near to the brokenhearted and is not afraid of our anger, our sadness, our doubt, our disbelief.

Just a few weeks have passed since many of us held candles and sang Silent Night, but we’re so prone to forget what we just celebrated: We have a God who desires to be near us. Who does not turn away but draws close, sitting with us on the bench as we watch the world unravel, time and time again.

It’s easy to believe in the goodness of God when we have numbed and isolated ourselves from the pain. But as national and global headlines continue to remind us, there are things beyond our control. No matter how much fame or fortune we have, the power we accumulate, or the number in our bank accounts, what we build on earth can be taken from us in an instant. Though we may try to be gods of our own creation, we are achingly human.

He has never let you down, never looked the other way when you were being kicked around. He has never wandered off to do his own thing; he has been right there, listening.

Psalm 22:24, MSG

As It Is In Heaven

In the moments when all our ways of protecting and isolating ourselves from pain fall away, we are left with who we really are—and who God really is.

And it’s our job—mine and yours—to stay tender to this. To extend what hope we have from one aching heart to another.

Over and over again, we pray “on earth as it is in heaven.”

We must hold onto the hope of heaven in order to bring heaven to earth. This is our call: to stay tender, to let our hearts remain open to the with-ness of God. Because when we know we are not alone, we can extend that hope to others.

The work before us—loving mercy, doing justice, walking humbly with our God—depends on this: that we do not forget the with-ness of God.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39, NIV

This Week’s Year of Breath

This week’s Year of Breath is here to help you pause, exhale, and step into hope—one small, intentional breath at a time.

Inside this edition, you’ll find:

• Breath prayers to steady your soul

• Guided reflection prompts

• A simple, grounding spiritual practice

• A playlist to carry you through the week

• A phone wallpaper to keep a breath prayer close

• A Visio Divina practice for stillness and contemplation

• A scripture passage to reflect on throughout the week

• A Blessing for This Week to send you forward in hope

This isn’t a checklist—it’s a palette. A set of invitations, not obligations. Just like an artist doesn’t use every color in their palette, you can choose how to paint your prayers. Some weeks, a single breath prayer might be enough. Other weeks, you may be drawn to a reflection, a song, or a scripture passage. Let this be a space of grace—a way to meet God in the midst of real life.

Breath Prayer

Breath prayers are a simple way to return to the presence of God in the middle of whatever your day holds. They remind us that prayer isn’t something we have to perform—it’s something we can inhale and exhale as naturally as breathing.

This week, may these short prayers help you receive the with-ness of God and witness to it in your everyday life.