What feelings go through you when you get woken up to a call at 5:20 am and it's your mom crying telling you your childhood home caught on fire and is gone? This is a thought many people have nightmares about and believe will never happen to them until it does. The feelings of shock, sadness, disbelief, and hundreds of other emotions you can't even explain begin to flood you. Crying the whole drive home, just to pull into a driveway you've pulled into a thousand times before, but this time, you're greeted with policemen and firefighters instead of the joy that comes from being home. The first glance at your house being gone. A heartbreak unlike any other. Just fighting to get through the sea of people to find your mom because you know seeing her is the only way you're going to feel like everything is going to be okay.
Losing your house and everything you own is one of the toughest experiences anyone can ever experience, but what things can you gain from it? Immediately after our house caught on fire our community came together in full force by raising money, donating clothes, bringing us food, and blessing our family in ways we never imagined. My sorority sisters came together to raise money for us and started donating all they could to help us. My high school and college both found different ways to help us, including donating, but also wanting to volunteer to help tear down the house so we can start building a new one. I can't even begin to count how many people called/texted/Facebook messaged/in some form contacted me that day just to tell me they loved me and were praying for me and my family. When people lose a child or a parent or someone in their family gets cancer, people will tell you, "I know how you must feel," but they really never can because they haven't had to go through it and don't see it ever happening to them. With a house fire, everyone could see that possibly happening to them, so every sympathizes with you. Including people you had a fight with 2 years ago and haven't spoke to since. This was one of the more unexpected things to come from this tragedy. A lost friendship was given a second chance.
It sounds weird to say, but in some ways I believe our house catching on fire was a blessing. It was definitely a hard blessing to see at first, but now with everything that keeps happening to my family, I can't think its anything but that. God works in mysterious ways and we will never know what he has planned for us, but in the end, its always whats best for us.
