Bones

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The Lord whispered my name.
I felt his hand upon me
and I saw a valley
through his eyes.

Bones. Death. Disconnected pieces of ruined life.
Scattered across the ground.
Silent and dry.
He led me into the valley
With my steps, I tried to avoid the white decay
but it was everywhere.
Bone dust rising with our steps.

"Child, is there life?
Anywhere around you?"
I doubted it.
I couldn't imagine life among these bones.

"Tell them about me," God said.
"Have enough faith to just speak about me.
Tell them to listen to me.
Have that much faith.
Believe that I can bring life from death.
Believe that my breath, my spirit, can do
what is unimaginable.
Have enough faith to say it."

I lay my doubt like a dry bone
upon the ground
and believed.
I did as I had been commanded,
and spoke of life to death.

As I did, with a great noise
the bones began to move.
Click and clack, snap.
Chalk rubbed against dust
and the bones stood together.
Assembled into the ghosts of life.
The bones were covered with flesh,
dry and wrinkled, holding the skeleton of life
into the appearance of men and women.

"Pray, my child, for life.
Ask for the spirit to enter this death.
Ask for my breath to come.
Ask for me to make a difference."

I asked.
I took from God the faith to ask.
To believe.
To have enough faith that God can make a difference.
That God can breathe life into death.

Death became life
and before me stood uncountable people
Once dead, now alive.
Once bone, now breathing flesh.
Alive in God's spirit.

In the valley of death and bones
God changed everything.
Where there was no hope,
God created hope.
Where there was no life,
God breathed his spirit into death.
And bones stood and came to life.

Do we ever stand among death?
Do we ever think a church is dying?
Do we lose hope; do we see only bones?
Do we have enough faith to speak of God?
Do we believe enough in the power of God to pray?

And you will know He is Lord
when he opens the grave of death and bones
and brings forth life.
Even you. Even me. Life.
And he will put his spirit within us, and we shall live.
Not a life of dry bones, but a life lived in God.
Awakened by his breath.
God among us.
God abiding in us.
Life.

Image: Ritter Park