Spiritual Apnea

“The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”  Job 33:4 NIV

“Stop trusting in mere humans, who have but a breath in their nostrils.  Why hold them in esteem?”  Isaiah 2:22 NIV

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord.”  Psalms 150:6 NIV

If you have never heard the story, it is worth repeating around our house.  A few years ago, my brother was at our house on the day of the Free Spirit Run.  We always hold it on the Saturday after Jordyn’s death anniversary.  The run is pretty low key and serves as a great way to see friends, remember our crazy daughter and get moving in a positive direction. 

That particular year my brother was at our house after the run.  He was going downstairs and apparently tripped at the top of the steps.  Keep a few things in mind, our stairway is concrete block on both sides.  The hallway at the bottom of the stairs is also made of concrete block.  Also, keep in mind that he is around 6’5” or something and weighs quite a bit.  He’s as big as a Buick. 

On his way down he managed to hit the only sheetrock section with something and made a perfectly round hole in it.  Try hitting a piece of sheet rock with almost anything.  It usually breaks so a perfect circle is odd.  I remember running toward the sound of him falling.  Unfortunately, that got me close enough to hear the last impact, which was his head sort of whip against that concrete wall in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs.  It was distinct.

He was rolled up in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.  He was also not breathing.  I was very happy to have my son in law there to help move him so we could do chest compressions.  At that point I thought we were trying to save my brother’s life.  The real first responders got there in what seemed like 20 seconds after we called 911.  They were so fast.  They did get challenged with getting my large brother back up the stairs. It took all of them.

We got to the hospital, and they got to work.  When I got to talk to the doctor I mentioned the chest compressions.  He just calmly said, “Yeah, you probably didn’t need to do those.  He probably had trauma induced Apnea.  He would have started breathing on his own and they were not sufficient to help him.  If they were you would have broken some of his ribs.”  I thought I sort of a first responder.  Turns out all I did was miss the chance to break my brother’s ribs.  Also, he could have just let me think I did something. 

That is a lot of detail just to bring up Trauma Induced Apnea.  I was recently diagnosed with sleep apnea.  My apparent problem was the obstruction of airway 19 times per hour during my sleep test.  That seems bad.  Also, my sleep test revealed that I was snoring at 70 decibels, about half as loud as Arrowhead stadium which hits around 120 decibels.  Those two numbers seem way too close together.

My point is that in my brothers case Apnea was brought on by the impact of head to wall.  Mine is caused by blocked airway.  Both cases are solved by air.  In my case the introduction of this handy little machine means I can sleep, without almost choking to death.  I cannot describe how much different it is to sleep with that little machine. 

It has also cleared up some mental fog that had grown to be a concern.  Words were not pronounced correctly and thoughts just would not stay in one place long enough for me to remember 3 minutes ago.  I was fading, to be honest.  Now after I sleep it feels like I am awake, not just physically but also mentally and even spiritually. 

I think our family is like a lot of families.  We have been tested.  We have had trauma’s in our life.  I think those trauma’s can cause us to sleep walk through our days.  Some of that is normal.  Some struggles are large and take up a lot of space in life.  Some struggles are smaller but they join forces with other struggles and grow into larger issues. 

But there is hope.  Just like fresh air properly introduced to the system clears a physical Apnea, fresh spiritual air is sometimes needed to clear a spiritual battle or more importantly, spiritual sleep.  When we face clear battles we stand up and confront them.  But when we face a more sneaky form of obstruction we can let those add up.  We can end up sort of just existing through a day.  I don’t think Jesus wants us to just exist through or lives.  I think He knows we will have struggle and He wants us to walk with Him through it.  Let Him clear the airways, so to speak. 

What are the battles you have in life that you just allow to sit there, without introducing them to the Holy Spirit inside of you. 

We normally look at the things blocking us in life as something we can master.  What if the blockage is the very thing Jesus wants us to have because it makes us eventually turn to Him for help with it?

Challenge: 

Some of life’s trauma is from an impact, like loss of a loved one, loss of a job or any other life event that is sudden or unexpected.  It has been over 15 years since Jordyn died.  I still have to remind myself to breath at times. 

Some of life’s trauma slides in less noticeably.  This can even be daily routine dulling the beauty of the life you are surrounded by.  This is harder to recognize. 

In either case, there really is only one solution, the Holy Spirit – the very breath of life.

Rick Claiborn