God breathes into dry bones

I sat at the bedside of a dying woman last week, and have a good friend who is close to death at this moment. Loss and pain are all around me, more visible than usual. If you're reading this, you may be carrying a heavy load of loss.

Yes, we know our loved is with the Lord, but God did create grief, sadness, and even anger as the normal ways to feel as we adjust to being without a beloved, as long as we don't move into these feelings permanently.

Another way we can feel--or not feel--is dried up, like the bones in Ezekiel 37. Yes, I know this passage is a prophecy about Israel that is at least partially fulfilled with their return to the Promised Land. However, with the richness of God's word, the description of the bones and God's comforting solution surely has the double meaning for us in our dry times.

The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones. He led me around among the old, dry bones that covered the valley floor...Then he asked me, "Son of man, can these bones become living people again?"

"O Sovereign Lord," I replied, "you alone know the answer to that."

Then he said to me, "Speak to these bones and say, "Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I AM going to breathe into you and make you live again! I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I AM the Lord."

Ezekiel 37:1-6

Lord, breathe into me, and fill me today with your hope and life so I may honor you in all I do. Thank you that you are with me in all that I do and go ahead of me wherever I go. Praise your name in dry times and full times!