The internet of the 21st century is creepy.  With all the tracking apps and spyware, it's easy to feel creeped out by technology. I do, at least. I mean, seriously, a week or so ago, I sat down and planned an imaginary vacation. This is something I do from time to time. Pick a place, usually somewhere tropical, and pretend I'm going on vacation there. I look for flights, hotels, restaurants, you name it. And I plan the whole thing as if it were going to really happen. 

Anyhow, back to my point. The creepy internet. 

So I did this very dream vacation planning thing and then pretty soon ads for my selected spot were popping up everywhere. I first noticed that Orbitz was emailing me hotel suggestions and cheaper flights for said dream vacation. Then in the margins of my Facebook feed there were ads. Soon I noticed that the creepiness was infesting every digital device I own because guess what, they're all linked through my Google+ account. 

Is nothing sacred anymore? I can't even plan a pretend vacation without the marketing spies stalking me at every turn. What has this world come to?

And then, this nugget of truth popped into my brain: my heart is like my social media newsfeed. 

Yes, that's right. I said it. My heart is like my newsfeed. 

You see, that which I put into my heart is what comes to mind repeatedly. That which I dwell on is what comes out of my mouth. The things I read pop up into my thoughts at the oddest times. Songs? They do it too. Photos and other images are even worse. And the more I ruminate on these things the more they manifest themselves in the newsfeed of my heart. 

This can be good. But often it is just bad. Especially if you're an anxious sort with a touch of OCD like I am. Oh come on, who am I kidding? I'm a control freak, type A worry-wart. There. I said it. And so this kind of marinating is really bad for my outlook and even worse for my soul. 

You see, it's that age old truth of garbage in, garbage out. If I obsess over the number on the scale, or the way that mom homeschools her kid, or how badly I messed up yesterday, that is what is going to come out in my life. Worry, obsession, poor self-esteem, competition, envy, lack of self-worth. And pretty soon I'm going to be googling how to fix it. This only makes the cycle more detrimental because now I'm not only obsessed that something is wrong, I"m hell-bent on fixing it. 

But, if GIGO is true, then good stuff in, good stuff out must also be true. 

So if I can somehow stop myself, breathe and then redirect my thoughts to something else, I might just be able to stop the vicious cycle. If I can just grab hold of the reins, tell the enemy to take a hike and focus on all the good stuff God is doing, maybe, just maybe that good stuff will actually come out in my life. 

That's what I'm working on these days. I'm tired of the enemy's spies stalking me, lurking around corners, studying my weaknesses and then laying tripwires in front of me. I'm tired of being trapped in an endless newsfeed of "I'm not good enough" or "If only I" and "But look at her" or "Why did this happen to me?" 

It has to stop. Today. Right now.

Today, I cancel my subscription to the devil's newsfeed. I'm not going to lend an ear or type into google any crazy idea the enemy puts into my head. No more walks down memory lane, listening to his revisionist history and misinterpretation of events.

Today, I'm going to stop reading his blog.

Today I'm going to remove his spyware from my heart and turn my focus elsewhere. 

Today, I start filling the newsfeed of my heart with God's truth, with things that turn my eyes to him and fill my heart with love and gratitude. That might mean literally unsubscribing to some social media things. It might mean listening only to worship music. I know it means spending a lot more time praying and a lot less time obsessing, analyzing and processing.

Yes, today's the day my newsfeed reflects who I am in Christ not who the devil wants me to be. 
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During the summer of my middle school years, I was on the swim team at our local tennis club.  I was a strong swimmer, but not especially fast and certainly not fast enough to ever place or earn a ribbon. My talent, if you will, was holding my breath.  I could easily swim the length of the Olympic size pool on just a breath or two.  And I remember shocking the judges and coaches at my first swim meet because I swam the entire distance without taking a breath at all. 

In the second summer of my illustrious swimming career, my parents signed us up for a skills workshop with Coach Sarah. We stood along the wall of the free swimming area and followed the instructions Coach gave us. After one of my drills, I returned to the wall and she crouched down and asked me, "Don't you know how to breathe?"

I'm certain I giggled and probably thought inside my head, "duh, of course I do." She continued a brief lecture about how important it is to breathe and that I need to do it more. And then, exasperated, she said this, "Even right now as I'm standing here talking to you, you're not breathing. Not through your mouth at least, you're just calmly breathing through your nose." She must have gone on to say that in exercise it is important to fully oxygenate our bodies by breathing through our mouths, because, well, that's what stuck with me 20-something years later. 

The thing is, I still hold my breath. All. The. Time. 

When we were first married, I spooked my husband more than once because he thought I'd died in my sleep. Turns out I just breathe very slowly and quietly while sleeping. Supposedly this kind of breathing has something to do with being a swimmer as my dad, a former swim coach, used to scare my mom with the same inconspicuous breathing.

I wish I could tell you that this is just a physical anomaly, something I can't really control. But I don't think it is. I think I hold my breath because I'm preoccupied, too busy or just waiting for something. I catch myself not breathing a lot. And then,I breathe out in heavy, labored, usually loud sighs. 

Even as I write this now, I have to remind myself to breathe. 

And so, as I ended 2015, I started thinking about my word for 2016. I prayed and asked God to reveal to me the word that encapsulated the one thing I could do in 2016 to change my life. And very quickly, breathe entered my mind. And as if it were a gasp of fresh air itself, I inhaled and felt at peace. 

See, I'm not good at slowing down. And I often rush through tasks, events and even life. All the while I'm holding my breath. And in doing so, I miss out on so much living, and essentially on thriving. Breathing is, of course, a top priority of thriving. One cannot thrive if one cannot breathe. Friends, I haven't thrived in years. Nor have I truly breathed. 

It's not easy to find Scripture that fully embraces what  this word breathe means to me. But here's what I've gotten so far, tell me what you think:
   He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life Gen 2:7 ... 
   ...Breath came into them and they lived and stood upon their feet. Ezekiel 37:10

See how those go together so well? God gave us breath of life and when His breath came into them, they lived. Of course that second part has hidden meaning to me because it says they stood upon their feet. Well, if you remember, back in 2014,standing was a bit of a challenge. 

I don't know exactly where breathe will take me in 2016. But I'm starting at the beginning. I can't fully breathe, I can't fully live, I can't thrive unless I let the Creator breathe life into me. And for now, that's enough.