What Would You Grab In A Fire

Waldo Canyon Wildfire – photo by Lane Arnold

I have just read this prayer poignant prayer written by Lane Arnold and forwarded to me by one of my facebook friends. My heart aches for her and the many others who have lost homes and possessions in these devastating fires that have swept through parts of Colorado forcing at least 32,000 to evacuate their homes.

The Colorado Springs fires may have burned our house but nothing can burn our home. For You, Lord Jesus, Your Presence, Your heart, Your kingdom are our forever home.

A couple of days ago Lane posted this on her blog and its words have resonated with me this morning.

My mind runs as fast as a wildfire. What’ll I pack if we have to evacuate? What’s important to have with me as the fire potentially threatens to hop ridges, careen across canyons, and whirl on the winds?

I look across the room into those sparkling blue eyes of my husband and my son’s thoughtful brown ones. Here are my two greatest tangible values in this home. I can walk away with these two and I will have lost nothing of great value. It’s that simple. My beloveds, here and afar, are my greatest tangible value beyond God Himself…..

What leap out are memories. My heart that’s been pounding full force grows calm, full of prayerful gratitude as I go. Smiles, laughter, even tears come. A snapshot on my desk of my three little ones, singing to me in their yellow slickers one long-ago rainy Georgia afternoon. Photographs my daughter gave me one Christmas from the travels we did together in Australia. The wooden cross in the kitchen from a women I’d mentored. A silly line drawing on the bookshelf, created thirty years ago, which one son found and recently framed for Mother’s Day. A woodcut and poem another son wrapped up for my birthday. The place my husband and I gather and pray each morning for our children and grandchildren. . A tiny angel ornament from a friend who’d been in Haiti. A watercolor from a prayer partner. The collage of childhood photos from my children’s life that greets me each morning upon my dresser. A bookcase full of journals, notes from almost sixty years worth of living. The photo of my husband and I at our high school prom and another one of our wedding in 2008. Love notes from our courtship. A few of these join the stash of things I’ll take with me.

Read the entire post here

Friends, families, community, memories. These are the important things that all of us miss the most when they are gone. It is a shame that often it takes a crisis like this for us to realize it. Nothing else apart from God really matters.

So as you pray for those who have lost homes and possessions this morning ask yourself What would you grab if the fires come your way? and may our hearts well up with gratitude for the friends and family and community   within which God has placed us.