God is good, in Octobers and fires.

If you don't get the reference in the title, it is probably because you need to read this:


http://amundsons.blogspot.com/2012/05/god-is-good-even-in-october.html


I loved Lisa's baccalaureate speech, but I didn't realize a mini October would come so soon after graduation.
I've been reflecting quite a bit about the fire in my house last Thursday and its after-effects, but first I should just recount what happened, because all things considered, we are so incredibly fortunate that the extent of the damage was relatively minor. 


I pulled up from work to my house to find my sister and mom out in the front yard, Maria balling, and Mom on the phone, clearly distraught. They told me there was a fire and I looked over at the house I've been in since kindergarten and expected to see flames at any moment. A couple guys in their own trucks and then a couple fire trucks pulled up and the brave yellow suited men made their way into my home. It was so surreal that I just sat and stared, but then was silently given permission to cry when Jordan pulled up. 


Long story short, a fire had started in the dryer in the laundry room which Mom and Maria tried to put out, but then were told by the 911 lady to get out of the house. Praise the Lord, no one was hurt, and structurally, our house is fine. It demolished everything in the laundry room and got hot enough to send thick smoke throughout the entire top two levels of the house, so there is now a layer of soot covering everything in my house. 


So, I'm so glad, for so many reasons, that I am marrying someone with Positivity as a top strength, because in processing this whole experience, I'm realizing that there truly are at least as many pros to the aftereffects of this than cons. 


Sure, cleaning out a house and being covered in soot were not the plans I had in mind for the weekend. And the wedding is in 33 days, so its going to take a ton of work to do the cleaning besides the planning. And we lost some clothes and stuff, but it could have been so much worse, if we were away or if it happened overnight...
Man...


I've always like old-fashioned things, so sometimes I like to think of certain events of my life in the context of historical times, like if my family had been in a fire in the prairie days. Of course I have no idea what that would have been like, but I picture it having been so much more difficult to put out, first of all, with buckets of water as the main resource and then I think of the neighbors coming over to take our clothes down to the river to clean them, and the process being a bit simpler overall because they had a lot less stuff back then...
But enough of that, thanks for entertaining my daydreams...


One positive thing is that I hope to come out of this experience with a lot less stuff. This weekend I gathered up a bunch of boxes of things from my closet to get rid of, and I have been needing to do this for years anyway, so the fire just put me on a timetable to do that, which as a procrastinator, is a great thing for me.


Also, since they are taking all the clothes and things out of our house to professionally clean them, I will probably get some things back in a couple months cleaner than they were before the fire...


But, the best part of this whole thing is we're living at Grandpa & Grandma's for now. And I know I should see them a lot already since we're neighbors, but in the busyness of a school year I don't really, so having their help and hanging out with them has been such a blessing. 
And although I do sometimes wish I lived in a time where people still believed in front porches, its been wonderful to feel the love of so many family and friends ready to help us with whatever we need.
God is good.