Hi, and welcome to the Five Word Prayers Daily, a five day a week, daily devotional where we share the word, prayers, and our heart.

I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me, which I trust and pray will be five minutes well spent.

So you faithful Five Writers, listeners to this podcast this first year, are really journeying with me through most of my

first after the death of my father and today marks the one year anniversary of his entering his

very best life in heaven. In some ways I can't believe it's already been a year and in other ways

it seems just like yesterday I was with him when he breathed his very last breath. Death is never

easy. It's not what any of us really want, I think, though certainly in some cases it's the answer to

our prayers for relief for our loved ones who are physically hurting or situations like that. But on this

Easter Monday, I want to talk about being very much alive and more specifically, being

alive in Christ, because some of us need a fresh word, a fresh outpouring of his spirit,

that in a very real way, life might come back to us again.

When my kids were much younger, I shared with them my favorite Bible story in all the Bible,

which was a tough one for me because I have so many favorites.

But do you know they still remember it as mom's favorite?

I love that.

It's a story often referred to as the Valley of the Dry Bones, and it's found in Ezekiel 37.

We don't have time to go

into the entire passage, of course, but I hope you'll read it later and maybe even research it a bit.

In a very small nutshell, this was a vision from God to Ezekiel, the preacher, the prophet,

to illustrate what has talked about in the chapter before, chapter 36, the restoration of Israel from their

captivity where they have been exiled. And the dry bones he's talking about in the passage is the

people's spiritually dead condition. I know this is a longer passage than I would normally

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