Speak to these bones that they may live!

Jeanne Knepper gave a presentation Let My People In! in Cleveland on January 15, 2000 before the Pre-General Conference Briefing for press and heads of annual conference delegations to General Conference. We shared it with our CALLED OUT news service subscribers. One of our readers sent this letter in reply, which we share with that person's permission.

Dear Jeanne,

I am a UM, though many years and long distant, now. By the witness of my family and church, I am at best agnostic these days. Though once a seminarian with a calling to serve the church I loved, there never was an "answering call," or if there was, it was a call to leave. And so, for more than a decade now, as concerns the church, and nearly two decades as concerns my family, I have lived my life in exile. Such is the power of witness.

I look upon my church, the fountain of joy in my youth, as a valley of dry bones. In your words, I hear a faint voice of hope. Speak to these bones that they may live. Speak to them, that they may feel again the pulse of life. And that they may again, I say rather selfishly, but with the fear of God whom I may know only in the faces of those who claim Him, speak to me.

In the hope of Jesus Christ, I remember this hymn:

      "O, Light that followest all my way,
      I yield my flickering torch to Thee.
      My heart restores its borrowed ray,
      That in Thy sunshine's blaze its day
      May brighter, fairer be."

Thank you, again.

R. S.

Speak to these bones that they may live!

by R. S.

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