Don’t forget to Breathe (Pause, Week One)

July 13, 2009 at 3:14 pm (Uncategorized)

As a nursing student, I spend a lot of time listening to people breathe. Respiration rate is one of the “vital signs” that we monitor on each patient numerous times throughout the day. One day last semester, I was in charge of caring for a brand new baby on the maternity ward. She was beautiful and tiny and fresh and taking care of her was something I’d been looking forward to for weeks. As I listened to her breathing patterns, I found my mind wandering to what else I had going on that day. Unbeknownst to that little one, my day was packed- from the minute I had to leave the hospital, I was going to be booked solid through 11:30 that night- including an important exam, a presentation for work and the final dress rehearsal for my dance concert coming that weekend. As soon as I tried to focus on that baby’s breathing pattern, my mind wandered to the material I’d been studying for that afternoon, whether I’d have enough time to shower before my presentation, and if I’d gathered all of the necessary things for rehearsal that night. With so much running through my mind, I couldn’t focus on that little one at all. It finally got to the point where I had to wrap my hands around her little body so that I could feel the rise and fall of her chest to determine her breathing pattern. Luckily, it was perfectly normal- but it took me five tries to figure that out.

While this may not happen to you while trying to take vitals, you know there are times when you are so consumed with what is happening next, and what you need to worry about for tomorrow that you aren’t focused on what you’re doing right now. We consume ourselves with what will happen tomorrow and with things we can’t manage, leaving us with no room to be here in the present.

In Matthew 6: 25-34 Jesus tells us not to worry about such things. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important that food and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet our heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?… But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”

Many of our students don’t have a lot to worry about- and some of them do. I would guess that for this generation, the problem of not being fully present comes from being too busy, and too focused on electronics. I think text messages are where these kids struggle with being engaged in meaningful conversations, and I told them that on Sunday. I challenged our students to spend ten minutes fully engaged with God each day. To turn off all electronics, and if they get distracted, start the ten minutes over again.

I know it won’t be easy- I think the average attention span of a junior higher is something like 8 minutes, and prayer and reading the Bible are hardly as exciting as movies and video games, but I’m confident that if they can do it, they’ll realize how great it is to be in complete community with God.

-Vickie Chambers, Summer Staff