Dry Bones

It was just like any other Sunday. We shoved down breakfast, rushed out the door, and made it to church just in the nick of time. I didn’t think anything of it. Little did I know, it would be the Sunday that changed the course of my life forever. 

My son was heading into his teen years at the time. I started noticing that his behavior was different. He was more sullen. I couldn’t put my finger on it but knew something was amiss. I didn’t know whether to blame it on puberty, school or his aspergers syndrome. I just knew he was off. So, I asked my friend, who had experience working with troubled teens, to talk to him and see if she could help shed some light on his behavior. She planned on talking to him for a few minutes after church that day while we played around outside with my other kids. Two, very long hours later…she called me down into the basement where they had been talking. He was visibly upset. She was white as a ghost. He had just confessed that my husband was secretly abusing him and his sister both physically and verbally since they were young. He went on to say that his dad became a totally different person every time I left the room. When asked, my husband readily admitted it was true.

I gathered the kids and left the next day.

The following days, weeks, months were a blur. More lies were revealed. More truths uncovered. Stories of my husband’s true character came into light, and the foundation of our marriage and life together for the previous 21 years was stripped away in the blink of an eye. The guy I thought I was married to wasn’t who I thought he was at all. But that wasn’t the hard part. Knowing my children were being abused…without my knowledge…and I wasn’t there to protect them. That was gut-wrenching. Beyond gut-wrenching.

Ironically, I had spent the previous 10 years as a foster mom. I sought to protect the children who couldn’t protect themselves. I tirelessly advocated for them…all 33 of them. The thought that I couldn’t protect my own children…from their own father…was in stark contrast to the mission I so passionately pursued.

Immediately after my husband moved out, the flood gates opened for my son. He no longer had to hold secrets inside. But the toxicity of the situation overwhelmed him and he needed help in an in-patient setting. The memory of leaving him in that facility still haunts me to this day. As I walked away and the steel doors locked behind me, I saw his dazed look through the window. I tear up now just thinking about it. No mother (or son) should ever have to go through that.

After he returned from the three weeks he spent in that facility…I slept in the same room with him to make sure he stayed safe. We would talk into the wee hours of the night comforting each other. Encouraging one another. We were both in so much pain.

My family jumped in and supported me in a HUGE way. They made meals, cleaned my house, comforted me as I lay crying in the fetal position on the couch. Eventually their lives went back to normal and I was left to take care of 5 kids by myself. Taking on the role of single mom was daunting. I didn’t run. I couldn’t run. My kids were hurting and wounded….they needed me. So, I did the only thing I knew how to do. Fall to my knees and pray.

I started leaning heavily into my Heavenly Father…the One whom I knew would never leave me or forsake me. I dove deep into the truths found in scripture. I was thirsty and He provided living water.

As I was reading one day, there was a passage that jumped off the page.

The hand of the Lord was on 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. 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. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?

Yep, that described my life. A valley of dry bones. Everywhere I looked I saw death. I lost so much. But then…

“I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 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.”

God very much had my attention at this point. I liked where this story was going…

“As I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.”

“So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.”

This. The day I read this…I fell prostrate on the floor. Literally. Face down, arms outstretched, I cried to the Lord…. Breathe life into me and my kids LORD! Create a vast army out of us. Knit us back together bone upon bone, flesh upon flesh. This is what gave me hope. This is what helped me start putting the pieces of my life back together. It was the hope that God will restore us. The hope that we will thrive again one day.

This became my prayer from that day forward. My battle cry. It still is. My circumstances didn’t change that day. But my mindset did. And it gave me the strength to keep moving forward.

Even though it’s been well over a decade, God is still in the process of knitting us back together. He’s still breathing life back into us. Our story is far from over but I’m so incredibly proud of how far we’ve all come.

On a side note: God answered this prayer in a seriously cool way. Maybe the coolest answer to prayer I’ve ever witnessed. But you’ll have to wait for the next post to read all about that.

Photo by Meta Zahren on Unsplash