You yourself have done this plenty of times,
spoken words that clarify, encouraged those who were about to quit.
Your words have put stumbling people on their feet,
put fresh hope in people about to collapse.
Job 4:3-4 (MSG)
The way I remember last Tuesday night was just like any other random night of the week. During the day I had done some laundry, worked on school work, gone to class, and met with my group for our assignment. I took a late evening shower, ate dinner, and waited to hear back from one of my best friends to decide whether or not we were going to grab a cocktail somewhere or not. By the time 10pm approached, I figured she hadn't finished her work, so I planned for a relaxing evening watching a movie on the couch with one of my roommates. My exhaustion was far greater than it should have been on a Tuesday, anyways, so I was relieved to snuggle up in the living room with my dog, Millie, and rest up for a long week that was supposed to be ahead of me. Little did I know then, but the exhaustion I felt was extremely mild in comparison to the fatigue I'm experiencing today.
Right as Elena, Whitney, and I were getting in to the movie we were watching, I smelled the very distinct smell of electricity burning. I jumped off the couch and ran in to our kitchen. Even though we aren't the little Martha Stewart types, we are usually pretty responsible girls. So it didn't surprise me that there wasn't anything burning in the kitchen. But as I frantically tried to figure out where the burning was coming from, I saw a little trickle of smoke creep out from underneath my bedroom door. As I opened the door to my room, I was engulfed in a cloud of dark grey smoke that was instantly joined with my bedroom window on the opposite side of the room shattering. I looked over to the wall behind my bed and all I saw was flames. Big flames. The kind of flames that I knew better than to try to put out.
Get everyone out. Where's Millie? Get Jackie down from upstairs before this gets out of control. Scream. Call 911. Oh my God, we don't even have a fire estinguisher. Get everyone out! Get the dogs! Call 911!
All of those thoughts raced through my mind. Elena jumped up immediately and ran to take a look at the flames blazing across my walls. She screamed at Jackie to get downstairs. She thought smartly and said we needed to shut the door to contain the fire. Whitney called the fire department, I called, Jackie called. Everyone was frantically running around. Jackie and I's dogs were running everywhere as Elena and I ran upstairs to get her dog from being closed up in her room. The smoke was upstairs already and was making it hard to see as we ran back down the stairs and screaming for everyone to help us. Millie ran inside and yelped at my door, using her Boxer instinct and pawing at my door. She saw me come from upstairs and followed me outside as I screamed for our neighbors to help.
Out of nowhere, a boy around the same age as us, ran inside and making sure everyone was out... he looked at me very seriously and asked where our estinguisher was. I told him we didn't have one and he ran out and across the street to the beer store, JD's Food Mart, and got theirs. He ran back inside as I begged him to get out. Our house is old, it could collapse on him. If he opens that bedroom door, the whole house is going to burn down. More so, If he opens that door he could pass out and be seriously trapped. WHERE THE HECK IS THE FIRE TRUCK? IT'S BEEN 10 MINUTES SINCE WE CALLED. WHY CAN'T I EVEN HEAR THEM COMING? WHERE ARE THE SIRENS?
I called my dad's cell phone and woke him and my mom up. All I could say - I mean, scream - was "Everything's going to be gone! I saw the flames! They're all over my room!" He tried to calm me down and my mother dropped to her knees in prayer. I have never felt such panic and terror in my life. The fire rescue unit arrived approximately 15 minutes after I called the dispatcher. They walked (not ran) inside my house and, by "protocol", checked behind every door to make sure no humans or animals were left inside the house. I kept screaming at them to get the hoses, I begged them to hurry and get into my room, I swore to them I got everyone out of the house. An emergency medical technician walked over to me and practiced breathing rhythms with me. "Baily" came back when I threw my hands in the air and said, "don't waste your time... I'm one big mess of anxiety attacks, I do this all the time." He laughed at me.
About 15 minutes after they finally went in and around the house with their fire hoses, a nice man in a fire-fighter's suit came over to me and informed me that they put the flames out. The man that followed him asked me who's room was the far rear one. I couldn't help but notice the clear regret in his voice. He told me that everything was pretty much destroyed but that I was lucky to get everyone out. He patted Elena and I on the back for "keeping the fire contained in the one bedroom by shutting the door behind us" and then he told us that we "probably saved the whole house from imploding." My things! Everything is gone. Everything... what am I going to do? I couldn't put my mind around it. I still can't.
For He will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help.
Psalm 72:12
As things began to die down, one of the fire rescuers went inside the house to look for my jewelry case and anything else that I could think of that might be of valuable and/or salvagable. Luckily, he found the few things I told him but I wanted to see it all for myself. I was able to be escorted into my room and as I saw the view from the other side of all the trucks that lined our street that night, I also saw how many people had come to see what was going on. It was surreal, and I later found out that the main road (Paul Bryant Drive) which intersects with our little side street (Oak Avenue) had been blocked off until about 1:30AM or so. As I walked inside I saw grey smoke covering everything like a blanket and then I saw the entrance to my bedroom. It was charred, black. I walked in and saw everything that I expected to see. When the fire-fighters told me to expect the worst, I did. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
the fire started on the wall behind my bed
the window that shattered
my closet; clothes were burnt and/or melted together by plastic hangers
Before Tuesday night, I had never really stepped back and looked at everything I owned. I thought I had. I mean, I have always prided myself on the fact that I stay socially aware. The day before the fire, I wrote a blog about homelessness and how to help the needy. The day of the fire, I wrote a blog about my faith and how I am one of those people who find strength during difficult times. Just hours before everything I possessed went up in flames, I wrote about my Lord and Savior and how he provides for me, shelters me, and comforts me. Yet, I wrote about how He tests me and puts me through trial after trial in order to strengthen my faith and remind me that I am nothing unless I cling to his Righteousness. In that same blog I wondered how people saw miraculous things as coincidence rather than the divine power of God. Now, I question the non-believer's philosophy beyond just wonder. I simply cannot understand their thoughts on this sort of thing. What scientific equation, I want to ask them, can explain why I wrote that blog just a few short hours before this happened. Why had I not locked Millie in her crate while I enjoyed a cocktail with my friend Kayley? Why was I not asleep in that bed where the fire started if I was so tired from my long day? The only answer I can think of is this: God didn't plan for me to be there and He spared me from danger because He has something very special planned for me in life. His master plan had me being in the living room and not in the bed, and He had everything planned accordingly so that Kayley wouldn't finish her schoolwork in time to go out for a drink with me. It happened the way it was supposed to, just like everything else does.
Even though I think of myself to be socially aware and an advocate for social change, I apparently was not as aware of my personal things. I am grateful for things, but I am guilty of stumbling into selfish ways at times. I wouldn't say that I am a snob or a materialistic girl in the ways that usually describe this type of girl - you know, the girls that won't get dirty, that carry their pooch named "Chloe" around in a canine purse or whatever you call those things, and drive around in their $80,000 car, and who pay $300 for a haircut and blonde highlights. I feel like I am materialistic in the way that I am fortunate to have nice things because of parents who have willingly made sacrifices so that my sister and I can have nice things which are both high quality and of high value. I remember to thank them, and to thank God for all of these materialistic blessings that I have been given in my lifetime. Because I know all of these nice things that I possess are truly blessings they have always carried with them much sentimental value to me. I'm the type of girl who would rather have a cluttered space than to have to get rid of something that meant a lot to me. It's doubtful that I would ever be one of the extreme "hoarder" types that we see on an episode of 20/20 or 60 Minutes every now and then, but I tend to hang on to stuff. In the 5 years that I have lived away from my parent's home and on my own, I have accumulated many, many blessings. So when I saw them look more like chopped fire wood than they did pieces of a wardrobe, or designer handbags, or books and journals, I realized so much.
I did everything I could to hold back the tears I so badly wanted to cry out. I saw the empty space that Millie's crate occupied, I saw feathers flying all across the room from the pillow I laid my head on every night, and I saw the clothes that kept me covered and 'in style' melted in a big blob in my closet. I took it all in - well, I tried to take it all in but one week later it is still not all taken in yet - and I lifted up His name in praise that everyone was safe and unharmed. The biggest blessing of all, and the only thing that has mattered to me since that night, was that I'd get to see the sun come up tomorrow. I knew that "things" are just that, they are "things" and as I turned to walk out of the room and towards a new beginning, I had an overwhelming sense of calmness, strength, and humbleness.
I could feel God's hands comforting me as I told myself this, "Everything is gone, and that's ok. Everything in that room is a worldly thing. When I die and have a new beginning in heaven, I will not be able to take those things with me. I will start a new beginning without those things, and God will provide me with the things I need. If I trust in Him during this hard time, He will reward me with the things I want."
Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow...
Each day has enough trouble of it's own.
Matthew 6:34
As the week unfolded, I discovered a multitude of things about myself. I am more patient than I have given myself credit for and I am just as much affected by the small things in life as I am the much bigger things. I was reassured through all of this that I have a family that loves me and supports me and that go the extra mile to give me more than I deserve. I discovered who my true friends are, and I learned a lot about some people who showed a different side of themselves during my tragic week. Some learnings were good things, and others were not as good. I can say one thing for sure, though, and that is that God is great, life is good, and love is uncondiftional.
I still sometimes find myself upset about the material things. Really though, the smaller material things. There's a bracelet my grandmother gave me that was lost in the damage, the words that journaled my life journey over the years are burnt and/or smeared by the water from the fire hoses, and the music that described the little bohemian fireball that I am blew up into stardust with my laptop. The Bible my parents gave me in the days following my dad's diagnosis in 1999 has suffered water damage, some of the vinyl records I adore were set ablaze, and there's nothing to show for the hours of vintage shopping and yard-sale hopping that I do for personal pleasure. Two thickly filled manilla folders that kept my two semester's worth of lesson plans are ashes and dust, and both my school books and personal reading novels are charbroiled nothings now. Despite the things that can consume me with sadness or angst, there are far more things to be thankful for. Like my life, and Millie's, and the few things that can possibly be restored.
Life is more than food; and the body more than clothes.
Luke 12:23
The most comforting thing in all of life is that God will provide for us if we trust in Him. I learned it when I dealt with my dad's diagnosis, I learned it when I've dealt with phases of personal tribulations, and I learned it this week. The best things in life are those that money cannot buy. The family, the friends, the prayers, and the smiles that enrich our lives and help us to keep going. I know that I have new clothes in my (temporary) closet and a computer in front of me because of the prayers offered by so many people. I'm fortunate to have good insurance that will help me rebuild my possessions and loving parents that will help me financially in the meantime. But even more, I have family, friends, and even strangers who have offered contributions and refused to let me decline their generosity. I am humbled by so many people that have helped in so many different ways throughout the course of this week. I am blessed beyond comprehension, but my post-disaster resolution is to pay more attention to the goodness that is behind all the kind offerings. The love and support of these many people is what really matters and what life is all about. I have no words to express my gratitude for the people that have shown their true devotion to our friendship. Although the absence of some people who I thought were some of my best friends is hard to swallow, I do not dwell on things when I have enormous amounts of love and support from so many other incredibly, amazing people.
So as I begin to build back my life, I am aware of the things that matter, the things that don't, and the things that should and shouldn't. It might be a long process, but that is not for me to decide. I am merely a part of His master plan and my life, it goes on for a purpose. My job is to be a disciple, to share my testimony, and to show the world that disaster, no matter how big or how small, can be overcome with trust in the Lord.
I am stronger because of faith, and I know He will not give me any more than I can handle. That right there is why I am able to start over, press on, and eagerly jump into this new beginning.
Peace&Love&Thanksgiving
Bjj
