Beauty from Ashes
“Well… our house is on fire.”
Carter isn’t one for jokes and the statement seemed surprisingly calm. Too calm.
I heard him clearly, but still felt puzzled. Instinctively I replied,
“What? What did you say?”
“Our house is on fire.”
Again calm, but a bit shakier. He didn’t have to explain. Somewhere in my gut I just knew… it was serious.
“Did you call 911?”
“Yes.” He stated.
“I’m coming.”
I was in my brothers’ bathroom trying on some jeans at a rummage sale. It had been an uneventful day… until now.
I ran outside and told my brother “I need you to drive me home. Now. Our house is on fire.”
It took me less than a minute to be on my way. As we drove on the back country road I saw the fire trucks a couple of miles behind. It was then that I realized we would beat them to our house. I couldn’t help but wonder what I was going to see when I arrived.
My thoughts were interrupted by my brother’s statement,
“Oh shit.”
I looked up and saw it…
The smoke.
It was a lot of smoke.
I had seen this sight a hundred times before, a pillar of smoke in the distance. I can never help but wonder what is causing it. I didn’t wonder this time.
I knew.
This was my house.
This was the house that we bought only five months ago.
This was the house that I had spent every weekend and many weeknights of the past 20 weeks working on. This was the house that we had just painted… and trimmed… and replaced doors… countertops… fans… lighting… and flooring. I had finally chosen my curtains and bedding and was finalizing room décor. This was our fixer upper… that we were almost done with.
As soon as I saw the smoke, I put my face in my hands and began to sob.
How can this be happening?
This can’t be happening.
But it was.
As we arrived to our home I saw my husband and three sweet babies in our front yard watching our house burn. The flames were pouring out of our children’s play room.
As my brother pulled into our front yard, I opened my door and had my foot to the ground before the truck had even stopped.
My babies. I needed to hold my babies.
I ran up to them, hugged them and thanked God for their safety.
The firefighters pulled in and we said a quick prayer for them as they began to work. We watched as they quickly got the flames under control and made sure the fire was extinguished. It all happened so fast and quickly it was over.
The fire was out.
I had never been in a house that had been on fire before. From the outside, I thought the loss would be isolated to one room... but I was wrong. I have heard the term “smoke damage”, but could not have imagined the extent of destruction it caused so quickly.
Our house was destroyed.
As I walked through the house, I couldn’t even process what I saw. There is no way this could be my house. My house was filled with natural light, light colored walls and white trim.
It was like I had walked into a nightmare version of my home.
Our normally bright house was a pit of darkness. Even with a flashlight I could hardly see. The air burned my throat and I had to leave after only a few minutes inside.
We all stood around for a bit and talked about how thankful we were that everyone was safe and how we all knew everything would work out.
Then one by one everyone said their goodbye’s and wished us the best.
Carter and I didn’t know what to do.
What are you supposed to do?
So we just sat in our front yard on a stump, baffled, at what had just happened.
What had just happened?
This fire had just demolished the last five months of our lives. And we weren’t just starting over, we were starting farther back than ever before.
How did we get here? We have never been those people that wanted a “fixer upper”; in fact, because of our lack of skills we tried to avoid it. But after two years of looking we decided this house had the greatest potential to give us what we dreamed of.
We bought our house hoping we could handle the adventure of a remodel. We had almost done it. It was far from perfect, but we were proud of it. We were proud of it because we had put so much time and effort into it. Of course we still had a ton of projects to do, but we had our final *big* project scheduled for the following week.
We have never worked so hard on anything.
All of our hard work, wiped away in about 20 minutes.
...
The next morning, I was lying in bed and a scripture I grew up hearing came to my mind.
“To give them beauty for ashes…”
I have always loved the sound of these words. Very poetic and they paint a beautiful picture of the redemptive process. It got me thinking… redemption is beautiful, but to be truthful, the process to bring beauty out of ashes is not easy.
I find myself today with a giant opportunity, I get to bring beauty from ashes… literally.
This process will not just happen. It will cost me. I have had, and will continue to have, many opportunities to not bring beauty from this situation.
I can choose not to make the most of it.
But I won’t.
I will not allow this situation to steal any more from me than it already has
I am headed to Redemption.
I do not worry about the destination, but the journey overwhelms me at times. I know how costly it is to go on this journey. It is not fun, but it is worth it. Even though I would not have chosen this. I can do this.
I will do this.
I will release my expectations.
I will stand on my faith.
I will hold on to my hope.
And I will choose to love.
And then I will wait. I will wait and watch it all unfold.
Beauty is coming.
Just wait and see.
Do you know of anyone who is also in an overwhelming time of their life? Forward this to them and let us make beauty together!
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