As I watch the devastation of hurricanes and earthquakes on the news, with homes and belongings being completely destroyed, I am reminded of what it feels like to lose everything.
The year was 1952, but I can close my eyes and remember it as if it happened only yesterday. I was nine years old and at home recovering from the measles. I heard someone pecking at our back door so I called out to my mom and when she opened the door the yard was filled with smoke. What I had heard were actually flames crackling on the roof. A spark had blown up the flue from our coal furnace onto the roof of that old farm house my parents were renting setting the wood shingles on fire.
My mother took me by the hand and we felt our way through the smoke and the trees to our nearest neighbor’s house taking nothing with us but the clothes we were wearing. When we got there my mother asked the neighbor to call the fire department and then call our doctor to see if there were any precautions needed for me. She headed back toward the house to untie our dog from the clothes line and get him out of harm’s way.
As I sat by the window watching my world go up in flames, I heard the neighbor finally get through to the doctor. She excitedly exclaimed, “I’m calling for Mrs. Anderson. Their house is burning down and she wants to know if Jimmy can go outside.” I laughed until tears were rolling down my cheeks. I told my mother about the call when she returned. She smiled and said, “I hope he said yes”. That was one of the most stressful days of my life, but I cannot think about it without smiling about that phone call and that has greatly softened the impact of that traumatic memory.
Laughter may or may not be the best medicine, but God taught me that day it is definitely one of the best stress relievers in existence. He taught me other lessons from that traumatic experience. I learned that things can be replaced but people cannot. I became so thankful to God that my mother and I got out of that house in time. Five years later, I would learn the other half of that lesson when my mother died from leukemia. I also learned that mankind has a soft, more generous side that doesn’t get enough attention. Money, clothing, furniture and housewares came pouring in from neighbors, people at our church, people at the plant where my father worked and even total strangers who read about the fire in the newspaper. I remember helping my parents sort through everything, keeping what we could use and donating the rest to local charities for others to use.
Whether they are as traumatic as that experience or minor in comparison, each trial we face is a learning experience that can make us wiser and stronger if we allow God to show us.