Some weeks ago we were faced with a common situation in a dry Western state. The threat of fire. We had a friend call and ask if we saw the smoke. No, we hadn’t, but we looked out the window and there it was. And it looked too close for comfort. I know fires always looks closer than they really are, but it was over the hill and hard to really get a good look at.
I am not a panicker, the type who freaks out and runs around like a chicken with my head cut off. Hubs went down to the neighbors and started their sprinklers because they were gone. I started all of our water. Then, I stood deciding. Which rigs should we take out of here? There were only 2 of us and 4 vehicles and an ATV. With that decided, I prayed and watched the smoke outside with hands on my hips, feeling quite helpless. I decided pack up a rig with things we would want and need should the fire head our direction. It wasn’t looking good as I monitored the wind sock. The fire was north of us and the wind was blowing from the north at about 15 MPH. OK, maybe another prayer. This time I went out and actually put my hands on the ground outside and prayed. That’s all.
Then I went back into the house and started to think about what I would pack. What to pick from a lifetime of memories? What is so precious to me that I would actually long for it if it was absent from my life? It really was an eye-opening experience. All of those photo albums that documented us and made our memories that led up to who we are today are in my head as vital memory. The pictures are older and faded and heavy in those albums. What about these books? Those paintings? This “stuff” that has journeyed with us and made available to our eyes everyday to remind us of pleasant days, wonderful trips or special occasions? What about my grandmother’s yellow Pyrex mixing bowl? Well, that would just be silly to take a bowl. When you are forced to pack a car to flee, it whips your life into a minute focus of what is really important. And…how much I probably need to get my act together and have an emergency packet with information to have on hand. Insurance information, contact information on paper and stuff like that. One thing I did do before this was print out every contact in my phone and put it in a file, in preparation for the time I throw that stupid thing into the ocean.
The first thing I grabbed was my Bible. Next to it was a verse box that belonged to my grandmother. The cardboard verse box was dated 1930 on the bottom in her handwriting, and dad brought her the wooden box it was in from Japan after the war. My sister and I call it The Anointed Verse Box. Yep, taking that.
Then, from upstairs I grabbed phone charger cords and saw the tea tin that belonged to my maternal g-grandmother. I grabbed it. A tangible link to my past, but it was going. She was born in the 1870’s, so that tells you how old it is. Then I grabbed our laptops and cords, binoculars and my purse and put them in the SUV.
Hubs was out plowing a fire break by this time and I was silently willing the water to pump a little harder over the fields around the house. Still praying. After all, isn’t that what most of us do when we are powerless to do anything else? I would like to think I am in the majority. Prayer changes things. It changes us from reactive into proactive at a certain point. Hopeful and not helpless. Focusing on the fact that our outcome in situations has absolutely nothing to do with anything we can physically accomplish or how much money we have, it is fate. It is in the hands of a higher power. It belongs to God. We are small and insignificant in the face of such an overwhelming course of events. We pray for a serendipitous ending to the story.
As I looked out at the trees in front of our place, I see the leaves blowing. From a new direction. Thank you Lord. The windsock confirms this shift as the wind starts to blow from the west. I could not believe my eyes. The smoke starts drifting to the west and we hear tankers and planes in the air within the hour. Hubs has flight radar on his phone and we counted 7 aircraft- helicopters and 3 different types of airplanes- working on this fire. It turns out these air crews had been doing fire training and were traveling home when the fire was spotted. They turned around. They could not have been 5 air miles past this fire when the call came in. What can you call that? I call it the Divine Providence. I call it God. That is all. It is not fun to feel powerless or helpless. It is never good to be at the mercy of something. Packing up the car and shutting the door on material possessions shed a new light on what is really important in my life. It is the human connections. That power to just walk away from all these things gave me just that, power. I was in control of my reaction. I was at the mercy of nothing. Just God.
To all my Florida friends… prayers for all our homes and all the people. xoxo