Temporary Housing

On my way home for lunch today, I got a reminder of how blessed my life is right now. I was probably a few miles away from our house just driving, listening to the radio, and miles away in thought when I saw smoke billowing over the road coming from the direction of our house. My mind immediately went to our house. Oh my gosh, what if it's our house? What did I leave on? Iron, curling iron, fan? Oh no the dogs, they're in their kennels! About the time my mind had enough time to swirl these thoughts around a bit, a police car swerved to a stop up the road blocking the lane completely. Smoke covered the road and a thick curtain came down between me and my house. I had to turn around.

Thankfully, my sense of distance is as usual, incredibly impaired and it wasn't our house. It was several neighborhoods away from house in fact. Like I said, not gifted in spatial orientation. I could never be the one to guess how many pennies are in a jar. I came home, loved on my dogs, breathed a sigh of relief, and then...I forgot about it.

Driving home from work I passed the house. It is in a beautiful neighborhood with other large houses, next to a golf course. From what I could see from the road and looking past the fence, there is not much left of it. I could just see charred timbers and what remained in the back of kid's playground equipment, also blackened. Somebody lost their home today. Possessions, investments, pictures, keepsakes, memories. How could I have forgotten? Easy. When it's not happening to me, I can put it away in my back pocket and forget about it. Leave the scene and it's gone, you know? It's good sometimes to have a little insulation and not to hold on to things, but sometimes when we forget the scene, we forget the lesson.

So I'm writing this down so I can think about it. Think about how temporary material things are in this life. How things that I tend to collect or hold on to can quickly be disappear and be reduced to ashes. I guess it goes along with the post below, but not intentionally so. Maybe God's trying to teach me something in this area. He's asking me to get my claws out of my stuff and into the stuff that matters. What am I holding on to that's only temporary? I think we're right to be devastated about a house burning down with all of our wordly possessions. It's probably like losing whole chunks of your life in memories. I can't even begin to imagine how that would feel. For me, as an onlooker, it's a reality check.