The Skies Opened Up

We had a minor tragedy occur this past week - someone decided to set our house on fire. It was early in the morning, and we all got out okay, but it was the realization of my greatest childhood fear - that we would lose the house in a fire. For as long as I can remember, I feared the house going up in flames in the middle of the night, but as I grew older, my fear started to wane as I thought about all of the people I knew who had never had a fire...and that maybe we would be as lucky.

I guess we weren't so lucky.

After the initial trauma, I found myself in shock, trying to keep everything in order while my brain spoke irrational thoughts. I spent much of Monday and Tuesday on the phone, retelling the story again and again, until my throat grew sore from so much talking. I feebly went to FPU on Monday and thought that going to The Mustard Seed on Tuesday would help. It did keep my mind off things, or so I thought, until I walked by Sheldon with a tray full of mugs, and he said, "You look mad." In that moment I wanted to sit down and tell him the story, but I couldn't - that would be against the rules - and so off I went with my mugs. I had to leave early, and likely missed a karaoke song being sung just for me, but I just spent too much time in my own head and just had to leave.

All week long I tried to pray, tried to find some encouragement in scripture, but I felt like there was a roadblack between me and God - I just couldn't get through and couldn't find comfort. On Friday I thought I had a breakthrough, but thinking back, I think it was at that time the shock wore off, and I stopped frantically trying to "do" things and started to think about the reality of the situation, and then I became depressed. I woke up on Saturday morning thinking that I just wanted to spend the rest of the day in bed. I had great plans to go to spin class, but that couldn't happen since I had been up most of the night. I felt like I would never be the same.

However, behind the scenes there was a great prayer chain working to help me out - whatever barriers to God that were keeping me from getting to him, they weren't there for my dear friends, and they were working diligently to pray for my comfort. As Saturday night rolled around, and it started to get dark, and my heart started to tighten, I received a message from God that I no longer had to worry, and it was as if the sky opened up to heaven and I could feel His presence envelope me completely. I felt no doubt that it was time to sleep. I slept for 8 hours last night, ran for an hour this morning, and feel absolutely great.

Now what can I do to thank Him?