My How Time Flies,,,,

Well its been almost 2 weeks since I've blogged, and as the title implies it has flown by. Theres never a dull moment around here. I've tried to be boring, but its just not our style, I guess. Since I last blogged, quite a bit has happened.

About a week and a half ago, I received an alarming "middle of the night" phone call. You know the ones......you automatically know that something bad has happened......and it had. My house that was left to me by my dad burned to the ground. As a child, I stayed in this home every other weekend, summers, and holiday breaks. At first, I didnt have much of a reaction. I was glad that everyone was okay and no one was hurt.

The next morning, I got Mal off to school, and Mabree and I made the two hour drive to see just what the fire had consumed. When I turned at the red light heading to the house, my nerves started to get the best of me. The closer we came, the worse my emotions became. As we pulled into the drive, fire trucks were again battling the reoccuring flair ups. The fire was trapped between a wall, and was continuing to burn. You can't really prepare yourself for anything like the sight of a childhood home no longer standing, but just a smoldering pile of bricks. My mind just kept going back two weeks when my girls and my mom decided to have a camp out in the garage with an air mattress and a tent. The garage was now unrecognizable, with the roof fallen in on the floor. A closer look revealed the metal bracket that held the tent up and what appeared to be the melted plastic of the air mattress.

How humbling can one experience be? How gracious can my God be? As I continued walking around the house time after time, my mind repeatedly went back to the camp out. Then as I stood back and focused on the front porch, the outline of my great grandmothers rocker caught my eye....I gasped. Now only a charred shadow of what it once was. Its one of the very rockers I have blogged about before, a big part of my growing up, and it was gone. The other chair that also graced the front porch was merely ashes in the pile of rubble. I managed to pull one side of the charred rocker out and although only half was in tact, I knew that I had to keep it. No longer functional, but still filled with emotion. It now graces my home, and everytime I see it, I am reminded of the many times that I have sat in it listening to the advice of my grandmother and great grandmother.

Most importantly, I know that the chair is only a piece of wood, one with memories, but still only wood. What I still have are my children and my family. God has once again shown me His face and it is beautiful. One of my favorite inspirations is.....Be still and know I am God. Its rare that any of us are still long enough to see God or to hear Him. But on that morning staring on, the crackling of the wood, and onlookers slowing down, I was still.