Sighs and groans can come with such ease, but inhaling is also necessary. So we take note of our diet of breath.
‘That was a deep sigh,’ he said to me.
I hadn’t noticed it, but he was right. I had let out a long deep sigh into the safety of our conversation. It was a release of something within me that needed to be exhaled: tiredness and exhaustion.
Bound-up tension had relaxed, and breath had escaped and flowed like water.
Somewhere, deep in my soul, the groan escaped as a sigh. Long and deep.
The body has a way of expressing the soul that we have limited to little control over. Noticing the involuntary communications of another can help us with connection to their deepest places.
Can I sigh and find an inhalation of hope? Is there something that I can take in to help me with the next few moments?
There is exhaustion. Physical tiredness from the work of the day.
But there is soul exhaustion from the long journey of struggling in a broken world. We breathe out and breathe in.
A sigh too deep for words
We are not alone in our sighs and groans.
Job, a fragile human like ourselves, sighs out these words.
For my sighing comes like my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water. Job 3:26
Job connects the frequency of his sighing to being like his daily bread and that his groans flow out of him like the ease by which water flows. The struggle is always there, and it expresses itself openly and honestly.
A writer of song scribes these words.
Listen to my words, O Lord;
attend to my sighing.
Listen to the sound of my cry,
my King and my God,
for to you I pray.
O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
in the morning I plead my case to you and watch. Psalm 5:1-3
The sigh and groan can have a tinge of desperation and demandedness to it.
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day? Psalm 13:1-2
Spirit (Holy) also sighs and groans.
Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along.
If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter.
He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.
He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God.
That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. Romans 8:26-28
It’s being pregnant
Someone close to me is pregnant at the time of writing this post. She is carrying a child. It’s uncomfortable, awkward, and heavy. It’s also coming into summer here, and all she will want to do is to be cool.
The baby will kick and move inside. There will be pain and frustration. Then, as the due date approaches, there will be a ‘how much longer’ expression of sighs and groans. She will ‘just want this baby to come.’
She can’t do much about it. The baby will come when it comes.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Delivery of that babe will involve focusing on the breath. There will be sighs, groans, pain, and struggle.
A midwife will know that this is normal and natural. They will expect it and know how to listen to the mother through the struggle.
I like what Paul says about the midwifery role of Spirit (Holy) in that Spirit ensures that our pregnancy moans and groans are fully present to God. That we are known in our state of distress. God’s Spirit is right alongside us, being the midwife to our groans and sighs.
It’s the reassurance that something good will come out of these times. We never know what the baby will be like until after the groans and sighs have been fully delivered.
Learning to inhale
For every sigh and groan, there must be an inhalation of air. At the base of letting the sigh and groan out, there will always be a need to take in the good. Exhalation and inhalation. Releasing the exhaustion, inhaling newness.
As we begin to notice our sighs and groans, we can also start to notice what we are inhaling and taking into ourselves.
- I am known
- I am loved
- I am held
It’s breathing in the goodness of God.
The meditative quietening of the self to notice the movement of breath out and then in.
It’s the taking in the same breath God breathed into the first man and knowing God is still creatively at work in our lives.
Breath in. Breath out.
Quotes to consider
- Despair is a spiritual condition. Despair is when you fall under the belief and conviction that tomorrow will simply be a repeat of today. Rob Bell
- Man lives by affirmation even more than by bread. Victor Hugo Les Misérables
- Real encouragement occurs when words are spoken from a heart of love to another’s recognized fear. Larry Crabb
- God is a lover, not a rapist. God cannot walk past an empty heart and do nothing. Larry Crabb A refuge is anything that protects, nurtures, or uplifts you. Life can be hard, and everyone has difficult uncomfortable experiences. We all need refuges. What are your own? Rick Hanson
- Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought. Victor Hugo Les Misérables
Questions to answer
- What is contained within a sigh?
- Notice your breathing. If a sigh is an expression of the soul, what is needed to be taken in?
- What comfort do you receive when you know Spirit is sighing and groaning on your behalf?
Further reading
Barry Pearman
Photo by Elyas Pasban on Unsplash
