Hope as Oxygen: The End of 2022

Here's to breathing room & space to heal 🥂 🎆

I laced up my running shoes today. I’ve ignored them for the better part of three years. They’re these fancy pair of Brooks brand shoes I bought awhile back. I remember leaving the sports store with a hop in my step—I was ready for new sneakers. I put them on as soon as I got home and took off on another multi-mile run to commemorate the moment. Before this buy, I had an old pair of ASICS—a pair in which I racked up hundreds of miles. The distance I covered in the old shoes began to hurt, the lack of support grinding on my knees. I didn’t want my miles marked with pain. So years ago, after I put the new Brooks on my feet, I could retire the old pair for the new.

New wineskin for new wine.

In my running hey-day, from 2012 to 2019, I clocked between 20 to 30 miles a week. Easy. But today, I sit before my laptop breathing deep and fast after a single mile run. I’m currently trying to catch my breath, and I’m realizing my body isn’t what it used to be. My capacity and physical strength five to ten years ago is not indicative of my current state. My longed-for running shoes are in still great shape, but my body and lungs work to tell my brain things have changed.

My body may have been tip-top pre-2020. But my spirit was drowning in 2019.
In 2020, I was suffocating.
Last year, 2021, I was gasping.
But in 2022, my breath returned to me.

Hope inflates me. Fuels me—expanding spaces within me that shriveled from abuse and neglect. Hope tells me there’s nothing to run from and reminds me there is beauty and goodness to run toward. And as slow, laborious, and even difficult as it is now, I run in freedom. I carry liberation in my heart. My spirit has space. Capacity.

This is not to say 2022 hasn’t been hard. I still have anxiety. I also have the tools to manage it. I still feel the sharp sting of loneliness and betrayal, but it comes in waves growing further apart. I still yearn for a sense of home and belonging. Despite the aftermath of spiritual abuse living within the landscape of religious trauma, every rejection I’ve faced, every door shut to me, and every loud naysayer working to discredit me can never take away the powerful treasure I’ve been given from the Giver of Life—the gift of knowing who I am. Knowing my worth. Knowing where I belong. Best of all, I know the warm embrace of the One who welcomes me and runs to me with his finest robes.

I want to say thank you. Thank you for being present with me. You’re presence here—reading my words and sharing your stories with me—kindled that hope. Some of you extended care and compassion in spades, and it is not something I will soon forget. I want to say thank you for your support. I outgrew the faith-based spaces that worked to grind me down—places and people who offered little support or help. But with you and within the greater community of wounded healers, I’ve found the ability to run my race anew.

We’re still becoming. Still new wine finding our new wineskins. Breathing life into one another, we find release from the suffocation of harm. We are increasing the capacity of the saints when we extend hope to those still gasping for air. Through compassion and a deep well of knowing, we reach into the depth so those drowning can come to the surface.

Despite being a runner for many years, I will lace up my shoe laces tomorrow and the day after—maybe even the day after that—feeling like a beginner, but I’ve seen my spiritual capacity grow. I’m confident my lungs will catch up.

Thank you for being a part of the community helping me find my breath again in 2022. Here’s to 2023! 🥂

Jenai 🌾

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My Reads for 2022

I always have a huge stack of books going—fiction and nonfiction alike. You can follow along with what I’m reading on GoodReads. But in case you’re wondering what some of my most meaningful and formative reads for 2022 were, I’ll add them here.

Nonfiction

(in no particular order)
Disunity in Christ by Christena Cleveland, PhD
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Anatomy of the Soul by Curt Thompson M.D.
Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown
Original Blessing by Danielle Shroyer
God is a Black Woman by Christena Cleveland, PhD
Art + Faith by Makoto Fujimura*
The Lord is My Courage by K.J. Ramsey
Dialogues with Silence by Thomas Merton

Fiction

(in no particular order)
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman*
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Gasmus
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

*If I had to pick a favorite from each category, it would be Art + Faith by Makoto Fujimura and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

EDIT: I finished Stephen King’s Fairy Tale after I had already drafted this post. I didn’t want to redo the graphics here, but I thought I should say, it’s worth the read. 😏

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I’ll be sharing some exciting news soon. Certainly by the end of January 2023.

Stick around for more.

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You can find past posts from Letters for the Wilderness by visiting jenaiauman.substack.com.