On Tues­day of last week, I had hair and nails appoint­ments at 2. So, I left my house a lit­tle after 1 to be on time to my appoint­ments. Lit­tle did I know, but a fire had started in the Black For­est, where I live, right about the same time.

At the same time, my hus­band left with one of our chil­dren to run some errands in the other direc­tion. He actu­ally drove past the start of the fire and took some pictures.

That left three of our kids at home.

While I was get­ting my nails done, my hair styl­ist had her com­puter out, check­ing on the news. She gasped. And then told me there was a fire in the Black For­est. The loca­tion was quite a bit away from where we live, from what I could tell. I assumed that it would be con­tained and taken care of quickly. I had no idea of the mag­ni­tude of it all. I texted my son, and he said every­thing was fine at home, no need to come home.

So I got my hair done. When I was half way done, my styl­ist stepped out­side, and then she called me to come look. We were about 20 miles from the fire, but it looked so close. It had grown to such great mag­ni­tude already.

I didn’t get home until nearly 7 that evening. As I was dri­ving home, I started to get a bet­ter idea of what I was fail­ing to under­stand. Here is the view of the fire on the road lead­ing to my house:

 

The radio sta­tion announcer said that the plume had risen to 30,000 ft and 70 miles long.

I wept on the drive up that road as I saw police offi­cers at all the houses along the road telling peo­ple to get out. The com­ing destruc­tion was so heavy on my heart.

Mike was home and was pack­ing things for an even­tual evac­u­a­tion: guns, clothes, one of his tele­scopes, sem­i­nary books.

Mike had already briefed the chil­dren that the evac­u­a­tion notice was com­ing soon, so they needed to pack up the things they wanted to save from a fire that could pos­si­bly burn down the house. Faith imme­di­ately went for her Bible. “I have my Bible, Daddy, which is the most impor­tant thing of all. Maybe I should take two, just in case.” And then she also picked a flower with a leaf to remem­ber what our prop­erty looks like. She shoved them in her pocket, but pulled them out often to show peo­ple the trea­sure she was car­ry­ing. I had to ask her sis­ters to pack her doll and some of her toys as it didn’t seem to be on her radar at all to do so.

My other daugh­ters packed their clothes for me. And Pey­ton grabbed a needle­work pic­ture her dear friend made for her. She also packed a bin of hang­ers for me. She knows I love iron­ing, but I’m still baf­fled over that one.

I was grab­bing my clothes, toss­ing them into my suit­cases. And the jew­elry that my hus­band had given me over the years. I prayed that the Lord would bring to my mind the things that I would want to have out of the fire. I packed pho­tos. Then I remem­bered Mike’s grandmother’s brooch, which his mother gave me when Nana passed away nearly 25 years ago. And my grandmother’s cro­cheted table­cloth and bed­spread. Pre­cious to my mother, I thought.

Reed, my 17 year old son, grabbed things he thought I would want. I didn’t see him wor­ry­ing about any of his things. He packed my sewing machine, Bosch mixer, grain mill, Vita-mix.

We texted our older sons who aren’t at our home dur­ing the week, or at all.

My old­est son wanted the quilt his wife had made for Mike. And then he remem­bered some old books if we had room for them.

Peter wanted a blan­ket that I had made him.

That was it. Nobody wanted any of the other stuff that fills our house.

My heart was warmed by the real­iza­tion that my chil­dren are not so con­sumed by stuff. They wanted things that have meaning.

The police came by to let us know it was time to go. We went to a friend’s house about a half hour north of here. It was tremen­dous to see the fire at night.

The next day, we headed up to Den­ver, as it was time for our state’s home­school­ing con­fer­ence, which we help run. We kept so very busy with the details we needed to see to. It was a ten­der mercy of the Lord to have our hands and minds so busy serv­ing oth­ers while the for­est was rag­ing with fire within about 2 blocks’ dis­tance from our house.

I was overwhelmed.

With peace.

And the love of friends and fam­ily. That was the part that really got to me.

I wasn’t afraid for our stuff. Faith had com­mented to her brother as we were dri­ving away, “It will all burn up one day any­way.” Have I men­tioned that she just turned 7?

I was so over­whelmed by the love, the offers of help, the out­pour­ing of com­pas­sion and care. So many peo­ple offered us places to stay.

I’m over­whelmed that the God of the uni­verse saw to it to pro­vide us with His peo­ple sur­round­ing us and sup­port­ing us and let­ting us know that we are not alone in this.

I’m over­whelmed that we were informed that we could go home again on Fri­day (or was it Sat­ur­day? I don’t remem­ber as it is mostly a blur to me.). We thought we weren’t going to get to go home until Thurs­day the next week at the ear­li­est. We didn’t go home until Sun­day because the con­fer­ence wasn’t end­ing until Sat­ur­day evening. I wanted to go home in the light of day because I didn’t know what we were going to find.

So, we spent Sat­ur­day night with friends after the con­fer­ence. After church on Sun­day, we went back to their house, packed up our belong­ings, ate lunch, and made that trek home again.

And I was over­whelmed. At our house, you could smell a whiff of wood-burning stove smell in the air out­side. Just a hint. Inside our house, it was per­fect. Not a sin­gle scent out of place. Our prop­erty doesn’t appear to have any ash residue at all. You would never know that there was a fire burn­ing so near to where we were.

I had dri­ven fur­ther down the main road from our house to see if I could see what remained from the fire. Right there, so close, were the National Guard parked in their trucks, block­ing the roads to keep us safe. It was real, all right. It wasn’t some hor­ri­ble dream.

And God was in the midst of it all. On Thurs­day night, I felt a bit weepy. We had heard some news that made us think that out house was prob­a­bly going to burn that night. We were tired, emo­tional, weepy. I cried with my friend.

But on Fri­day morn­ing, I awoke so refreshed, so filled with great peace. It was aston­ish­ing to me. The Lord had renewed my mind, gave me such a light­ness of spirit. I praised His name con­tin­u­ally that day. I was filled with the joy of  the Lord, which was noth­ing short of a mir­a­cle. I read and med­i­tated on Psalm 103 that day.

Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name.

And I had such peace. It is hard to com­pre­hend and even harder to describe.

I would never sign up for the tri­als, but I am so thank­ful for what I learn in them. I learn some­thing of God that is dif­fi­cult to grasp on paper. I can nearly touch Him. I can taste His good­ness, and it is so sweet. And nobody can ever take that away from me.

I pray that my chil­dren will be for­ever changed by this expe­ri­ence. I pray that they will always know with­out a doubt that God meets their needs above and beyond any­thing they could even think to ask.

I heard peo­ple talk­ing all week about my chil­dren. They observed a peace about them. Many won­dered if they fully grasped what was hap­pen­ing. They were happy, joy­ful, help­ful, kind. No tears, no bit­ter­ness, no fear.

And yet, I believe they com­pletely under­stood what was going on at home. But they *knew* that God was in it. They know that He is sov­er­eign, and that if He sees fit to allow our house to burn down, then He will see fit to pro­vide some­thing else for us. It’s what we believe, and what we teach them. I love it that they got to expe­ri­ence the rub­ber meet­ing the road. And the pro­vi­sion of peace that doesn’t come from us and our strength, but from God alone.

Every ounce of courage came from God. My prayer is that the hope that we have and the faith that we showed in God will be mul­ti­plied in oth­ers. I hope they know it wasn’t an act. I hope they know that it wasn’t from us. I hope they know that God sup­plies all of our needs, from big to small. And this is not from ourselves.

And I hope that they will lean on Christ for all things.

I pray that this fire isn’t wasted. I pray that for every pine nee­dle that was burned, that a life will be changed. Given new life, hope, joy, peace. That they will see that God is big­ger than a for­est fire, even the biggest one Col­orado has ever seen in its his­tory in regards to damage.

In the after­math of fire, there is regrowth, renewal of the land. That is a beau­ti­ful thing. I pray that while the life returns to the for­est, that Life returns to the peo­ple. That they will repent of their sins and embrace the gift of Life eter­nal, life that will never be burned up, like all the stuff will be.

Don’t waste the fire with more death. Live in the renewal of life eter­nal. Which is found in Christ alone. Run to Him for your shel­ter and pro­tec­tion. Don’t wait for the fire to be lick­ing at your heels. You will find rest and peace with Him. Rest from the daily pains and sorrows.

I pray that you will awake with that same joy that filled me this week. That joy that comes from the well­spring of Christ’s love. For there is no fire hot enough to destroy it.

The lat­est update says that 502 houses burned to the ground, 14,280 acres were burned, which is 24 square miles. Two peo­ple lost their lives. The loss is stag­ger­ing. Please con­tinue to pray for the peo­ple who lost their homes, and the fam­ily of the two who lost their lives. Such heartache. I pray that they all will know the peace of Christ also. And that the fire won’t be wasted in their lives.