Home Destroyed by Fire

This week brought an unexpected event into our lives. Our neighbor’s home was struck by lightning. I wanted to share the story because I believe it’s a great reminder of how life can change in an instant. One moment our neighbors were safe in their home and in a flash of lightning, their lives were changed. The interior of what was once a beautiful home was turned into ashes. Thankfully, all five people made it out safely, but they were only able to save a very few possessions.

On Tuesday evening of this week, a lightning storm passed over Oviedo. I was playing Uno with the children when Kim asked me  to move into the kitchen because the lightning strikes began to hit all around us. Shortly after we moved, at about 7 pm, we heard a lightening strike followed by a loud “Boom!”. I knew immediately that one of our neighbor’s home was struck and said so to Kim. After a few minutes she looked out the window and called me over. There was an immense amount of smoke pouring from a home across a small pond in the center of the neighborhood. It was so thick that we could not tell which house was burning.

After a surreal 15 minutes had passed, we saw the roof burst into flames. One after another we heard emergency vehicles begin to roll into the neighborhood with sirens blaring. They kept coming, and coming, and coming. At one point we counted 8 pump engines from three townships, several paramedic vehicles, and an assortment of about 10 sheriff and emergency vehicles.

The vehicles stretched from one side of the neighborhood to the other. These vehicles were followed by news crews from 4 different stations, arriving near the end of the 2 hour long fire.

The last hotspot from the fire was not extinguished until 6 am the next morning. From the exterior of the home the damage does not look terribly bad, but Kim was inside, helping the family sort through the ashes and she said there is nothing left.

The whole incident made me consider my own possessions. We even talked about it as a family and what we would take if our home caught fire. I thought about what was really important to me. It’s easy to say that my home and possessions are not that important, but what would my reaction be if this was my home? Would I be able to walk away and say that “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” as Job did? I’m not so sure it would be that easy.

I will continue to pray as I always do for the Lord’s protection on my family and my home, however, I also pray that God will enable me to hold everything loosely. We truly can not anticipate what will happen tomorrow, but we can be sure that God is in control and that He will give us the strength to face whatever it is.

God bless,

John

“Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.” Mark 11:23-24