I step out of my car, greeted by the smell of stale smoke and the glow of stars in the sky like nothing had ever happened. If I only look up, I could imagine we went camping - but that would require ignoring the devastation around me. Welcome home.
It’s been a while. Almost 17 days exactly, yet it feels like a lifetime. Is that a glow on the horizon?! No, it’s just the city lights.. I’ll have to get used to those again. The hillside is dark - too dark. Pure blackness where there should be house lights. The quiet hum of the freeway is like a distant echo of the fire’s roar from that night.. or is it? Was that really what it sounded like? Did I make that all up? I rather wish I had. But whether or not the sound was all in my head, the reality of our new life here isn’t. Same old house, brand new world. No more same old neighbors. No more same old deep sleep. Now it’s boiling water to drink, keeping a go bag packed, and sleeping with one eye open. For how long? I wish I knew. That’s the problem when your old world goes away; you have a hard time putting 1 and 1 together again. It shouldn’t be hard - just shake it off and keep walking, right?? Yet somehow I have a hard time going inside. I’m frozen leaning against my car, waiting for something to happen that will make me get back in again. But I can’t stay out here all night... I’ve barely slept these past weeks as it is. My heart weeps and prays for those who don’t have a home to go back to tonight. If this shock is hard, I can’t imagine what that must feel like. Maybe I can, but not to the same extent. I shouldn’t have a house to come home to. The blackened hillside next to me reminds me of that. Our house was spared for a reason. Our family is blessed more than we could ever articulate or grasp. And why? Not so I can stand around outside, that’s for sure!! Or is it... I think, at the end of the day, it’s to be a light. My own flame feels like it’s flickering right now - even worse than when this all started, and too much for me to see myself being any kind of light for anyone else - but this too shall pass. This night, too, will fade, and the next and the next will too. And at the end of all those days all that matters is that I spent the time with the friends and family that matter most to me and that somehow something of mine made this world a little bit of a brighter place to live in, whether or not I get to sleep in my own bed at night.
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March 2023
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