Inside the Writing of When Breath Comes: Can These Bones Live?

A Raw Look at the Creative Process, the Hours, and the Words That Won’t Let Me Go

There is no rushing a book like this.

Some books come quickly, tumbling out in a rush of urgency.
This one is different.

This one is slow, weighty—like walking through the valley itself, running my hands over the bones, waiting to see what will rise.

And I want to invite you inside that process.

Not just to share a finished product, but to pull back the curtain on the hours spent waiting for the right words. The drafts. The rewrites. The moments when something lands with clarity and the moments when I have to sit in the silence because no sentence quite holds the weight of what I’m trying to say.

So here’s where we are:

This book, When Breath Comes: Can These Bones Live?, is being written with deep intention. Every word matters. Every chapter is being shaped to hold space for the real, raw ache of what happens when faith unravels—and what it means to stand in that valley without rushing to an easy resurrection.

Today, I want to give you a glimpse inside.

Below is the working introduction—still being refined, still taking shape, but already carrying the heart of what this book is becoming.

I would love to hear from you. What lands? What resonates? Where do you feel it in your own dry bones?

Because this is not just my story. It is ours.

And we are writing it together.

INTRODUCTION: When Breath Comes

It was the summer of 2014, and the last Sunday I walked into a church felt like quietly surviving something unbearable. I sat stiffly in a chair, breath shallow, eyes fixed forward, as murmured prayers drifted around me—distant, irrelevant. The sermon promised hope, but the words landed brittle and sharp, scraping over an already raw heart. Every minute of that hour stretched long, heavy, almost impossible.

I had not arrived at this moment through a single crisis, but through years of quiet erosion. Promises had shattered too often, words had rung hollow too many times, and authenticity had become scarce in a world filled with well-marketed spirituality. My questions—the ones I carried deep and aching—were met with dismissal or silence. They were “too much.” I was “too much.” Slowly, quietly, my faith began to feel distant and hollow—a script rather than a life.

And yet, even as my faith unraveled, I knew—deep in my bones—that God was more expansive, more beautiful, more real than what we were peddling.

I had spent nearly a quarter of a century in ministry—pastoring, church planting, walking alongside my husband in leadership, ministering in my own right. I had given everything to it, poured out my time, my energy, my identity. I had once believed in what we were building. But at some point, I had become fluent in a language that no longer carried life.

I knew the answers to almost any question within my belief system—even the ones that made space for mystery. And yet, something in me felt hollow.

I had wanted belonging.

That need kept me far longer than I should have stayed. The need to be a part of something, to believe I had a place, a role, a purpose. To believe I mattered within a system that had formed me, even as I wrestled with the quiet ache of never quite knowing if I truly belonged.

And then, I found myself at the end of it all—holding a lot of knowledge, but not much life.

What do you do when faith becomes an act of endurance rather than a place of refuge?

When belief is no longer something you live and breathe but something you perform, because walking away feels impossible?

What happens when the fire burns out, but you’re still standing in the ashes?

Like Ezekiel walking among bones dry and brittle, we have found ourselves in a valley, running our hands over the remains of what once was—feeling the rough edges, the emptiness where life used to be. We have watched faith communities fracture, watched leaders fall, watched the hollow spaces where conviction once burned. And still, we stand, unsure if what we are looking at is the end or the beginning.

This valley isn’t just personal; it is woven deeply into the fabric of the Church itself. Whether we acknowledge it openly or quietly sense it beneath our gatherings, something essential feels lost—hollowed out by spectacle, trends, and superficial certainty.

That Sunday morning, I remember the artificial warmth of stage lights, forced smiles, the vague discomfort of scripted greetings. I heard familiar phrases repeated mechanically—words like “God is good,” spoken without conviction, empty echoes of truths that once held power.

People remain. People leave. Churches rise and fall with cultural tides, chasing relevance—but beneath it all, hunger lingers.

A quiet longing for something deeper than popularity or attendance numbers.
Something real.
Something that endures beyond podcasts and platform-building.

But we did not just lose our way—we ran ourselves into the ground.

We mistook movement for life.
We mistook performance for presence.
Like Israel before exile, we believed we could build endlessly, consume endlessly, rise endlessly—never stopping long enough to ask what was being lost.

But there are always consequences for refusing to rest.
Always.

And so, the bones remain.

Ezekiel does not give us a map, but he offers us something profound: a simple yet powerful question.

"Can these bones live?"

Ezekiel spoke these words not in triumph but in exile. He stood in a valley filled with bones stripped of life—a stark portrait of despair.

And yet, this question, shaped by God's gentle prompting, is not one of finality. It is one of possibility.

It reminds us that renewal does not begin with certainty.
It begins with acknowledgment—with standing in the valley and seeing what is truly there.

It isn’t a directive.
It’s an invitation.

Permission to stop performing.
To pause amid dry bones.
To listen for something stirring beneath the silence.

This book is not about tearing down for destruction’s sake.

Yet, much that stands today, propped up by trends and popularity, may indeed need to quietly fall away.
Not violently, but gently—so that breath, presence, and authenticity can take root again.

Together, we will explore the quiet truth hidden in the valley:

The dryness you feel isn’t failure; it’s honesty.

It is a doorway to renewal, the first breath taken after a long season of holding back.

And when breath comes, we will rise.

We will step gently into spaces of vulnerability, tending a faith that is neither performance nor pretense but something honest—rooted deeply in who we truly are, neither more nor less.

Through stories, guided reflections, and quiet practices, we will not force life back into the bones.

We will wait for the breath.

Because the valley was never meant to be the end.

It is the place where we stand among what has been lost, where we listen to the silence before any voice calls us forward.

We do not yet know if life will return, or when breath will come.
But we know this:

We are not alone in the valley.

Your Thoughts?

I want to know—what stands out to you? What words reach into something familiar?

Drop a comment below or send me a message. This book is being written in real time, and I want to hear from the ones who know this valley.

We will not force life back into the bones.
We will wait for the breath.

And when it comes, we will rise.