We have had several prayer requests lately in our church that have struck very close to home, reminding Tim and myself how blessed we really are. They have also served as heart warnings, reminding us to pray for our family, guard against sin and evil, and cling to God always. I wish I could describe the situations, but out of respect for them, I will just say that I crawl into bed at the end of the day and am humbled that
today
was so blessed, and I am not promised any of it tomorrow. There is a reason we are called as Christians to live in and take joy in today, because sin continues to bring grief and sorrow into our lives, and oftentimes it takes us off guard unexpectedly.
However, in case you sometimes think my life is all joy and gladness, I am as human as the rest, and I am exhausted. Baby girl is sitting high so I have had a hard time breathing for 3 days, my husband works through this coming weekend and the resident is out of town, so he will be working nonstop for the next 2 weeks again, and daylight savings time is brutal with LJ who woke up the last 2 mornings at 5:45am (2 weeks ago he slept till 7:45!). While LJ has shown signs of improving the last few days, I have no energy right now to minister to him even at better. This is a season, but it is a tiring season for me. I didn't realize how easy or better LJ had gotten until the last few weeks have been so hard, and I find myself desperately wishing that he would be seemingly healed for the next few weeks, just so I can selfishly get sleep and peace before I have more sleepless nights!
So yesterday I read the following and the Holy Spirit spoke to me encouragement (bear with me here, this is going to seem really out of left field):
Ezekiel 37
The Valley of Dry Bones 1 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"
I said, "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know."
4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.' "
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
9 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' " 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
11 Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.' "
Now, I realize there are all kinds of prophetic messages here, but when I was a little girl, a musician named Michael Card wrote a song about this passage. I don't remember the tone of it, but I remember thinking - Wow! God can bring dry bones to life and breathe air into them so they are a vast army. It is a great visual of how powerful God is. For today, it encourages me that when I am dry, when I have nothing left to give my family, my boys, my friends, He can breathe new life into me. He can restore me to the living. He has already put His (Holy) Spirit into me, who continues to daily teach me God's mercy and grace, and show me how He is becoming my everything. Having children has increasingly made me aware of how little I can do of myself. Many mornings I wake up and think, "God, I can't do this - You have to do it." That is not the same self-controlled, self-sufficient woman of 3 years ago. It is interesting to me how God uses such an everyday thing like being a mom to teach me full dependence on Him, and how He may use something so much more drastic to teach someone else. This Ezekial passage may seem a bit of an extreme example, since I am obviously a very healthy person with a healthy family; but I think there are days we all feel that dry, that unwell, and some of us are fighting diseases or losses around us that affect us that deeply. May our hope ever be in the Lord!
