I spent the week away from my family starting on a Sunday and ending on a Saturday. I didn't plan anything really. I only wanted to go and see my best and drink tea and turn twenty-two and make galettes and read Beatrix Potter. Instead I ended up barefoot on a sidewalk, holding hands with a sobbing K as she watched her husband kick doors down to wake people up, and fire ate away at everything they had.
Not but thirty minutes after I arrived, I watched with my best friend as we thought she was losing everything.
I never thought before, about what that would feel like. I think we just don't have it in us to imagine it. But on Monday, it was real for me. I know what it feels like now, to think you will have nothing in the next hour.
And it hurt. There was a moment when I was kneeling in the grass, my hand over my mouth, dozens of firemen swarming around us, fire eating everything, and Samuel with his arms around K, and it hurt so badly I began to cry. It hurt harder and worse than I ever imagined it could. I can't even explain it. A vise crushes down on your ribs as you watch something like that, and it's not that you can't breathe because of the thickness of the smoke, but rather because you just know.
I knew she would have nothing left.
But I prayed anyway. In my vulnerable state of being on that street corner, I began to pray under my breath. Because I have a small amount of faith, but it's still an amount of faith.
Please, I whispered. Please leave at least one thing God.
The next day I stood inside that apartment and ran my hand over the top of the dry, white piano that was on the wall next to her bedroom, and I thanked God with all my being.
She had everything left.
Every letter, every book, every record, every tiny bowl. Every picture, every piece of her wedding planning, every tea cup, every tin. Every story, every rug, every spoon, every box. Everything.
God spared all of it.
My faith is so small.
I honestly believe that my faith is probably tinier than the mustard seed. Because to God, my one thing was His everything.
I wish I could tell you everything I am thinking now. I wish I could explain how this has so changed my perspective of my God. It's incredible, and after a week of dirty jeans and sweatshirts and piles of boxes and faces rubbed with soot and rain and hard work and so much thanks, I feel like I could write you a book about Jesus and who He is. Because I didn't know. I really didn't know.
Can I just say that again?
I didn't know who Jesus is.
And that is throwing me. Because I thought I did. I was so sure of who I love and devote my life to. But after that pain, He was revealed to me in a new way, and I am in awe.
Things aren't supposed to matter. I know that from Matthew 6 (verses 19 and 20). But I'm only human, and apparently I'm also one of those sad little women who love things with such heart and become attached so easily. So I am admitting it. This was difficult for me. My hands were shaking over a Sadler teapot that I knew was special. And like I said, it hurt. My heart seemed to spill out of my chest cavity watching two of my dearest friends think everything they had that meant something to them was gone.
But God.
Those are two of my favorite words.
But God was merciful.
Our God is loving. He is kind. He is good and just. Our God is all-powerful. He is righteous. He is perfect.
And our God is merciful.
Sometimes we forget He is all of those things until He demonstrates and illustrates it to us.
In the twenty-four hours from the fire first starting, I was kneeling on a sidewalk barefoot and then I was kneeling in her kitchen and packing up her white stoneware from Crate&Barrel. And I couldn't stop shaking my head. I have never been amazed in my life till that moment. I know that now.
During the days of aftermath that followed, I ended up alone in the apartment for a few minutes. It was pouring rain outside, and I was sitting on a wet carpet wearing a grey sweatshirt and dirty pants and leaning against the wall.
There was a time in my life when I didn't know Jesus. I knew who He was, but He wasn't mine. So I didn't actually "know" Him. The pain of being lost and in that state is something I didn't recognize because I was so small and young and little when He met me. But I think I know now, what that feels like. I think I learned.
You know, you will actually know, when you experience mercy and grace. It is unmistakable. There's no way you can't know when it happens to you. Because everything is insufferable beforehand. You are angry and upset and you can't breathe and you ache and it hurts. But then there's mercy. And then you know.
Sitting alone, tired and wet and dirty, I knew. Because the pain was gone, and He was there.
I knew who Jesus was as I pressed the back of my head and my hair pulled up against the wall dripping with rainwater and streaked with soot. For the first time after almost my entire life worshiping Christ, I learned who He is, and also that there will always be more to learn about Him.
I serve the most amazing Savior. His grace knows no bounds, and His mercy never ends.
I want to discover Him for the rest of my life.
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