Bones are fascinating. I honestly never paid a lot of attention to them. After all, they are hidden inside. I take them for granted because I have good bones that have carried me around for 53 years. I did lose a coworker to bone cancer decades ago. She was a beautiful young woman who worked as the librarian at the middle school where I taught and she loved God and her family and all of those kids at that school so much. It was profoundly sad to see what cancer did to her, but when I think about her, I choose to think of her walking along golden streets with Jesus.
In March, I broke my leg. The fibula was split in two spots, but since the ankle was only sprained and not broken with the fibula, I did not have surgery. Instead, I was fitted for a big boot that had a pump on it to hold things in place. It took six months for my bone to heal and this taught me more about bones than I had ever truly thought about.
So, yes, I took Biology in both high school and college, but just the basics, so I know what most people do about our bones. But until mine broke, I never really thought about how significant bones are both physically and spiritually. To make it all even more profound, while I was hobbling around on my broken leg in that boot, I was proofreading a book I was about to publish written by a teen girl with osteosarcoma. Alea has had her tibia replaced with titanium as well as several ribs. She was diagnosed with this awful cancer of the bones as a 13-year-old. Today, she is 18 and has relapsed over and over again as she fights her ninth battle against this monster. I certainly wasn't about to be complaining about a little broken bone while reading this.
PHYSICAL TRUTH ABOUT BONES
Bones are stronger than steel. One cubic inch of bone can withstand the weight of five standard pickup trucks. Have you ever wondered why people can do karate chops on wood and break them without breaking their hands? Bones.
So if they are so strong, how do they break? Bones are also light and flexible, so the physics behind the speed and angle of our falls can cause them to break. But just like Superman, our bones are stronger than steel and there's a reason for this... bones protect our insides!
Our skull protects one of the most important organs in our body- our brain! The spinal cord, a pathway for messages between the brain and the body, is protected by the backbone, or spinal column. The ribs form a cage that protects the heart and lungs, and the pelvis helps protect the bladder, part of the intestines, and in women, the reproductive organs.
Bones are made up of two types of tissue:
Compact bone is the solid, hard outside part of the bone. It looks like ivory and is very strong. Holes and channels run through it, carrying blood vessels and nerves.
Cancellous bone looks like a sponge and is found inside compact bone. It is made up of a network of tiny pieces of bone called trabeculae. This is where bone marrow is found. This soft bone is where most of the blood cells are made. The bone marrow contains stem cells which produce the body's red blood cells and platelets, and some types of white blood cells. Red blood cells deliver oxygen to the body's tissues, and platelets help with blood clotting when someone has a cut or wound. White blood cells help the body fight infection.
Bones are fastened to other bones by ligaments. Cartilage, a flexible substance in our joints, supports bones and protects them where they rub against each other.
Adults have 206 bones.
Babies have 300 bones, but no worries... they don't lose those bones. Instead, their tiny bones fuse together to form the larger bones in the skeletal system.
More than half of our bones are in our hands and feet.
Bones are LIVING TISSUE. The collagen in bones constantly replenishes itself, and it’s a lifelong activity. Every year about 10 percent of bone is replaced. As the mineral content in bones is renewed, we get a new skeleton about every 10 years.
SPIRITUAL TRUTH ABOUT BONES
The Bible talks a lot about bones. Out of the all of the books of the Bible, 29 of them mention bones.
Genesis, the very first book of the Bible, begins with creation. Already, we see a bone removed from Adam and being used to create Eve. "Bone of my bones" - created from something as strong as steel from a bone that protected his heart, I find it fascinating that this was the way God chose to create woman.
We see several stories of the children of Israel carrying the bones of someone who died with them when they leave. Joseph even commanded them to take his bones when they would many centuries later head off to the promised land. David also took the bones of Jonathan and Saul from where they were killed back to Israel.
I'm not sure how many times bones are mentioned in the Psalms and Proverbs and even in Job. The prophets of old would say they could feel their ministry and passion deep inside their bones like fire. Ezekiel was in a valley of dried up bones and spoke LIFE into them.
I have always been so fascinated by blood because life is in the blood, but now I also think bones are fascinating because the life of the blood is in the bone. Strength is in our bone and just like our bones connected man and woman in the beginning, they also connect us to God. Like we are bone of His bone.
When my bone was broken, everything changed for me. I could not run and swim and lift weights. I could not even walk. It took my strength from me. I began to fade into weakness quickly and realized how significant bones were in the physical realm. That is when I began to cry for my Father in Heaven to breathe life into the dry bones in my life.
He has yet to answer this prayer. I only have a small amount of hope left. My physical bone is healed. My spiritual bones are dried up and just about dead. I am barely making it. No one knows this. They see me rising above the ashes and fighting for causes I believe in, but deep inside, I am lost and dying. I do not see justice. I see loss. I get up every day and pray. I dig through Scriptures to find answers, to find God. With hardly any strength left in me, I plead with Him to restore. I walk through the valley of the shadow of death surrounded by dried up bones. I have enough faith (perhaps just a bit less than a mustard seed) left, so with that tiny amount, I cry "restore my soul" and "breathe life into these dried bones".
Not one of Jesus' bones was broken in His horrible death. Jesus will come back for me. Today, I hope He will reach down and breathe a bit of restorative life into my bones.
