Always Ready

It was the Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. By 9:00 AM we were at our dining room table weaving Easter baskets from construction paper strips for tomorrow’s big egg hunt. Mom scurried about preparing for the celebration while our dad worked in his church office a few hundred yards away.

Someone pounded on our front door. Visitors were common but this was not the knock of a familiar friend. As the “man of the house,” I walked through the kitchen toward the door, alarmed by the haze descending from the ceiling. The pounding on the door intensified as my eyes locked on at least 3 men through the windowpanes.

I don’t remember if I opened the door or if they kicked it in, it doesn’t matter. They saved our lives. Furiously they grabbed my 9 year old frame, my siblings (Rachel, 11 and David, 4) along with our mom and rushed us outside. Once we cleared the shadow of our house, we turned to see the roof engulfed in flames. These strangers, now our rescuers, saw the fire from the road and ran toward the danger. I never knew their names but will never forget their actions. They faded into the background as the volunteer fire department arrived.

What fire doesn’t destroy, the water will. Our possessions were incinerated, singed, saturated or infused with that lingering scent of smoke. The artificial Christmas tree stored in the attic became an oozing puddle. G.I. Joe didn’t stand a chance and neither did baseball cards, furniture, mom’s wedding dress and so many things we enjoyed.

The flames were extinguished and water streamed onto the surrounding fields. We huddled in the driveway trying to make sense of what happened as the firefighters recoiled their hoses and left the scene. Dad walked through the steaming house and came out with a stuffed animal for each of us kids and a handful of important documents. 

Some might only see what was lost that day. We see what we kept and even gained.

Within a few hours, friends came by with suitcases of clothes and a bag of groceries. That night we gathered on a hotel bed as my dad prayed, thanking God we were alive and healthy. Easter Sunday, we sat in church wearing someone else’s outfits, surrounded by the love of family and friends. Our excitement over the empty tomb was accented by the hollow shell of the parsonage everyone passed while entering the church.

By Monday an army of mothers set up a calendar of lunches for each school day. The Holiday Inn was our home for two months and as kids, we celebrated that every day someone else made our beds. For another few months we lived with our Aunt and Uncle, who also added a couple sheep to their small farm on the day we moved in. There’s nothing like farm chores to help kids pass the time that goes with displacement.

Before long the house was rebuilt and we came home. I was a kid through all of this and the vantage point is perhaps much different than had it happened today. Several lessons were forging through that fire:

1. God watches over us. There was nothing I could do to stop the fire. Something short circuited and the inferno raged. We were utterly dependent on God to protect and provide. We were not helpless, but we were then and are now dependent on God’s mercy and grace. Those attributes are sweeter on the other side of trauma (Psalm 84:11).
2. Hold everything with an open hand. We lost lots of stuff that entraps our emotions and distracts our allegiances. God simply removed layers of things that are ultimately unnecessary and left us with what will last for eternity (Col. 3:2).
3. Stay alert and act. Death lurked over our heads, alert strangers snatched us from under it. That moment transformed us to permanent alertness. How much more important is that alertness and immediate action toward spiritual danger. The parallels and urgency never leave my mind as they prompt me to act (1 Cor 16:13-14).
4. No one loves like the family of Christ. Others smothered us in Christlike love. From families that brought us clothes to my relatives on the volunteer fire department, that insane day was eclipsed by the outpouring of love from others, never to be forgotten (John 15:12-17).

Many memories are tied to specific days. The Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday is one of them. It is also the same day on which I would years later marry the love of my life. So in all, “that” annual Saturday is always one filled with grace upon grace. As the hymn says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”

Lansdale, Pennsylvania – Saturday, March 29 1986